Flashover
by AmbulanceRobots
Summary: Flashover: When all the combustibles in a room reach their ignition temperature simultaneously. Or, that moment when Akitaru Ōbi realizes he's running the empire's most lethal kindergarten. A loose collection of famfluff and nonsense. Probably more nonsense than fluff, really. Updated sporadically, and not necessarily posted in chronological order.
1. Chapter 1 - Strays

**Really? Nobody else is just gonna write some wholesome ridiculous Team Dynamics fluff for this fire house of weirdos? I have to do it? Fine. You get what you get, though. I'm crazy.**

**Not all the information in these chapters will be anime-friendly, but you'll get the gist. I'm mostly here just to play in the sandbox anyways. XD**

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Because sometimes Ōbi's bleeding heart gave Takehisa more work to do.

It was part of what made him likeable, and quite frankly, he wouldn't have put up with a lot of the nonsense that happened in the 8th if a great deal of it wasn't born from their Captain's inborn reflex to help everybody. It was more complicated than even that; Ōbi had the ability to spot a diamond in the rough from thirty paces, or from the most impersonal of student files, or even in the middle of _pitched combat…_

At first, Takehisa was sure that it was luck. By the time they had been saddled with both Licht and Vulcan, he was sure it was a skill.

And it had saved them more than once. Oh boy, their rookies were still _super rough_ (and Takehisa knew this on a personal level, as he had taken it upon himself to polish them, because there was no way Ōbi would do it by himself), even the "senior" ones, but they had good hearts, sharp instincts, and were unwaveringly loyal. Everyone else could spot the diamonds now. Still uncut, but recognizable. He was sure that whomever Ōbi dragged home next would be much the same. Loud and undisciplined and in severe need of some leashing, but filling a hole they didn't know they had.

Speaking of leashing…

They were following a dog. An actual dog, whom Ōbi had found sniffing carefully at their groceries as they made a stop at the store. Takehisa had come out with his arms laden to find his Captain feeding it shrimp chips. Long legged and brown and skinny, but with enough meat on it to let Takehisa know that it was canny enough to know how to get a meal. Canny enough to know that Ōbi was probably going to end up emptying that entire bag of chips into it, even if it was slightly wary of his large hands. Still, he offered pets and food, and the dog wasn't about to complain; Ōbi even got a couple shy licks at his hands in recompense (and Takehisa considered that a somewhat poor trade, as they could definitely not buy replacement chips with those same hand licks). Eventually, long before reaching the bottom of the bag, some sort of inner, incomprehensible switch was flipped, and it took off down the street at a swift walk.

With Ōbi in tow.

And hence, with Takehisa also in tow. Even though Ōbi was a grown man, and could certainly get himself back to the cathedral on his own.

Also, they should leave the poor dog alone; it was likely able to outrun the both of them (certainly in speed, if not counting Ōbi's freakish stamina), and any covert attempts that Ōbi made to close the distance between them only had the dog moving a little faster.

They were jogging now.

With groceries.

This was not anywhere near the relaxing, mundane chore it was supposed to be.

Takehisa made the claim that any attempt to catch the dog might spook it out into the street, where it could get hurt. Ōbi countered that he wasn't really trying to _catch_ it, just follow it. Takehisa didn't believe that shit for one second, and if this chase had been all for curiosity's sake, he would have turned around right then and left.

And yet, here he was. He was not yet sure what that said about him.

The dog eventually made an abrupt turn down a small alley, and immediately it's body language change to one of comfortable familiarity. Namely it's ears and tail came up, and it just about sprinted down to the dead end. It stopped in front of an open door behind a restaurant, to a loud, vocal cacophony of greetings. A couple people came out, one bent to pet the dog, and another with a bowl of table scraps, which appeared to be even more appreciated that Ōbi's chips, given the speed at which it's tail was wagging. One of the people reached a hand into what Takehisa first though was a box of old rags, except that it moved, and a very tired, skinny cat leaned into the attention. There was a similar old box of towels on the ground nearby, presumably for the dog.

"Seems it is getting along just fine." He sighed, surprised to feel something rather like relief, before giving Ōbi a nudge. "Come on, sir. We've dragged this out long enough. Let's not bother them."

Ōbi had the biggest, stupidest grin on his face. He was unabashedly relieved, and then some.

"I'm just glad it has someone looking after it." The grin didn't abate one bit, but he turned from the alley anyways. "It's gotta be rough to be a stray in a city like this."

"But it's made due." Takehisa turned on his heel. They had a decent walk ahead of them to get back to the Matchbox in the store parking lot. He may as well lead the way to prevent further distractions. "Let's go, we have our own hungry strays to feed at home." He wasn't even close to kidding; he somehow didn't realize that taking care of so many people under the age of twenty meant that the most of them seemed to be in a constant state of starvation. Ōbi could put food away because he was huge; these kids could put food away for no fathomable reason whatsoever, other than wasting energy on inane things.

Ōbi switched the grocery bags he was holding to one hand, and plucked most of the rest of them from Takehisa's arms. At least if he was going to drag the both of them down this random street and that random alley, he was polite enough to carry most of the groceries for their walk back. The Captain cocked a brow and fixed him with a look as he did so.

"Did you just call them 'strays'?"

"I did."

His other brow joined the first, and he gave Takehisa a lopsided smile.

"Brutal."

"You treat them the same way." He was able to stifle it pretty well when at the cathedral, but once the rookies were away by themselves, the Captain had a habit of pacing worriedly. It would have been endearing if it weren't so irritatingly distracting.

Ōbi snorted.

"I do not."

"Yes, yes you do." He shifted the remaining groceries in his hands to balance the weight, and lengthened his stride. "You somehow managed to find the various cast-offs of society and bring them home."

"Wow, you are _extra_ brutal today." He could just about feel Ōbi's grin burning into the side of his face. He ignored it.

"None of it is meant as an insult, simply stating the facts."

"Except that you have all the subtle delivery of a nice heavy brick to the face." Ōbi was snickering now, and Takehisa did his best to ignore that too. "Also, _no I don't_."

"Stating it more than once does not make it less true." His photographic memory was coming in handy; given the wild rush that had gotten them here, it was a miracle he had enough landmarks to tell him where they were. "Our company seems to have suddenly acquired a worryingly large number of orphans." He spared a little mental corner to mull this over; it was true, they had an unusually high percentage of "lost" kids on their roster. "I have my suspicions, and I blame you for every one of them."

Obi coughed out an indignant squawk.

"I didn't even know these kids _existed_ twelve years ago!"

Takehisa gave him a look over his shoulder.

"That is not at all what I meant, and you know it." He didn't think he would have to explain that. Of course he wasn't responsible for the circumstances, just for collecting the various pieces of the aftermath and bringing them home with him. Repeatedly. And really, Company 1 bore the brunt of suspicion regarding Shinra's situation, specifically. "I'm just making you aware, every single one of your recruits has been an orphan."

"That can't be true."

"It is." Takehisa took a turn at the corner, hearing Ōbi's heavy bootsteps behind him. "We can start with Iris, Shinra, and Arthur."

"I didn't pick Sister Iris, she was sent by the Temple."

"And you kept her."

"I didn't hear any complaints from you or Maki. Speaking of Maki…"

Oh no he was not.

"I wouldn't try to make that comparison if I were you. Maki is my recruit, I take responsibility for her, and she is not an orphan _at all_. She has… an aggressively protective family." He had a whole rolodex of memories filed from their second trip to the Nether. Fighting in the dark with Maki's brother as both his only backup and as someone who probably wouldn't have worked too hard to prevent him from dying had been an uncomfortable experience. In poor Takigi's defense, Takehisa hadn't made himself very likeable. Deliberately. He took some pleasure in knowing that the younger sister cracked significantly less under his unique brand of verbal hazing than her older brother, who had basically fallen to rage-filled pieces. "Very, very aggressive."

"Hell yeah she does. You almost decapitated Shinra with a clipboard when he first met her in the office."

He could hear the mischief creeping slowly back into Ōbi's voice. Takehisa had to cut this off before he became absolutely incorrigible.

"Not what I meant in the slightest. You are being deliberately difficult." And he refused to look at the hypocrisy that was a brief moment of a spike in temper. It made him uncomfortable.

"And you slaughtered my perfectly good television that day."

"Stop bringing home untrained strays, and I won't have to punish some manners into them."

"_Yikes_." Ōbi's laugh was a perfect balance between mirth and horror.

"Maki turned out fine for it." And she did. He was proud.

"_Double yikes._"

Throwing-a-clipboard-into-a-television aside, Takehisa didn't see a problem. So far, Ōbi had never stopped him, either. Despite likely ruffling feathers on both sides, the exchange worked out well. Ōbi brought in rookies with powerful skills, honest hearts and the common sense of doorknob, and Takehisa would fix the rest. In all honesty, despite the rough edges, the probies gave him quite a lot of good material to work with. He hadn't managed to really break any of them, yet.

He heard Ōbi sigh.

"Okay, so we have three orphans. You cannot honestly think I'm doing it on purpose."

Back to this topic? That was fine. Ōbi's stubborn bullheadedness was what made him good at this job.

"Five, and yes, but please continue."

"It's not like I look at an application and it says, 'comes with a tragic background and unresolved emotional baggage involving the death of all known family members.' There's no way for me to know!" Ōbi managed a broad gesture with both fully-laden hands that also managed to somehow not jostle the groceries too much. Takehisa was impressed.

"I have a feeling you lean towards them just on instinct alone." Because that was just his way, to want to fix what was broken, be it people, things, or the whole damned Fire Force. Even if his ability to do repair work around the cathedral was _ghastly_. Just the worst. "Also, there is no sustaining evidence that Arthur's family is dead. He was abandoned."

There was a choked, uncomfortable cough from somewhere over his shoulder.

"And the brutality coming out of your mouth continues unabated."

"It's how I am." That was this whole situation, really; Ōbi could not change his way of being, no more than could Takehisa. Even when it clashed. "And you take in strays. It's what you do."

"I run a _company. That's _what I do."

"And you have filled outcast Company 8 with outcasts. It's almost a little poetic." He could see the store and subsequent parking lot towards the end of the street. Even at this distance, the massive black Matchbox was hard to miss. He could not be any more thankful that this was almost over.

"You don't even particularly like poetry." Ōbi gave a thoughtful grunt. "Wait, who the hell are the fourth and fifth orphans? Tamaki is right out, and not just because she has a family. Burns sent her our way, since she was suspended from operating at the 1st pending the criminal investigation. Although, if I give in to your analogy that I bring home stray dogs, _which I'm not because it's rude,_ I guess that means Tamaki really is a cat."

"I find it droll that the White Lion of Tokyo gave up one of his kittens to you." He would admit that the mental image it conjured was mildly entertaining. "And the fourth and fifth orphans are Vulcan and Lisa." At the pace he set, the distance down the block took less time than he thought. He crossed the store parking lot to the Matchbox as quickly as he could without actually jogging. Returning to the safety of something approaching his standard routine was comforting.

Ōbi's exasperated sputter was amusing. Good; it was about time the discomfort ran in the other direction for a while.

"Vulcan is eighteen! An honest adult! Lisa is… um. Huh. Anyways!"

"Vulcan was orphaned years before you picked him up. Lisa too, hence the difficulty in undoing Giovanni's damage." Which was an emotional ant's nest the Takehisa found himself _woefully_ unprepared to deal with. His very presence seemed to cause her to bolt. She seemed to do much better with Ōbi. He supposed that was natural, given the circumstances of her presence at the 8th. "My theory still holds."

"And really, Iris, Shinra and Arthur brought home Vulcan."

"At your command, yes they did." He unlocked the back of the rig; with nobody else riding in the back, there was more than enough room for all the groceries. He turned enough to pin Ōbi with a look. "They are very loyal to you, and you have taught them to fetch." If he'd had both his hands free, he might have been tempted towards a slow, sarcastic clap. "Bravo."

"We are gonna have to cut the salt from your diet, because that is all I'm getting from you today." The low growl didn't carry any real heat with it, which meant that Ōbi was only slightly irritated. Which meant that Takehisa could safely push a lot more buttons. He didn't indulge often, but they were out, nobody else back home would know, and Ōbi still owed for the energy wasted on this dog-chasing farce to begin with.

"I suppose this will be easier, since you have given away half our shrimp chips."

"You like dogs, too. Let's not kid ourselves."

"Yes, let us not." Groceries loaded, he made his way to the driver's seat. Not only was driving his job with their Engineer back at the cathedral, but Ōbi's aggressive, inefficient driving made him white-knuckled in absolute frustration. "Come then, ringmaster. Your beasts are waiting, and I'm not sure how long Maki can keep them controlled by herself." Because if there was one skill he hadn't managed to scare into her yet, it was teaching her how to properly pull rank.

"I'm going to tell Sister Iris that you called her a 'beast.'" Ōbi pulled himself up with hardly a pause in stride. The Captain had always made getting into the high front seats of the Matchbox look ridiculously easy.

"Do it. If you think you can." There was an infinitesimally small chance that it would actually happen; Ōbi was naturally opposed to hurting feelings, especially if it was Sister Iris. Their youngest, unless you counted Vulcan's occasional clinger-on Yū, and out of all the lost youth Ōbi had brought into the 8th, she was the best behaved one by leaps and bounds (Maki lost points for summoning her terrible little flame sprites the minute his back was turned). Those good manners made Takehisa inclined to agree with him, more often than not.

"Also, 'ringmaster?' Is that the best you've got?"

If Ōbi wanted to challenge that, Takehisa would oblige.

"Would you prefer 'alpha?' Make you the biggest dog in the place—"

"Never mind what I just said. Just get in and drive!" Ōbi just about threw his seatbelt into the buckle and crossed his arms. If he had been ten years younger, Takehisa would have called the gesture pouting. Given his age, and size, it was almost childishly humorous.

"Or perhaps we can use 'father—"

"Less talking, more driving! I will pull rank to make this happen, so help me God." The switch from irritation to embarrassment was immediate. And loud. And probably why their Captain commanded such unwavering devotion even from their rougher, more reluctant members; such a personable swing of emotions was not uncommon. And Takehisa resolved to ponder exactly where he fell on that metric at a later date, when he wasn't distracted by minding the road. He managed to swallow a sigh, but relaxed into the back of his seat none the less. Despite everything, they hadn't ended up running too much over time, and should get back to the cathedral in short order.

Turns out, the adventure was _not quite_ done, they just didn't know it until after parking the Matchbox in the app bay and carrying the groceries inside.

As expected, Maki had lost control of her juniors at some point while the upper command was out (disregarding Licht, who tended to keep his own company in between collaboratory bursts with Vulcan). To no surprise, Shinra and Arthur were the prime culprits, but Takehisa could easily argue that everyone in attendance was complicit, since they were all certainly not curbing this calamity (to his own disappointment, Maki appeared to have stopped trying, standing in the room with her hands on her hips and with far too few rebukes coming out of her mouth). Maki also had Sputter and Flare out and about, which meant that at one point there had been an open flame inside this building for her to pull from. Whether that had been an item, or from either of their third-gens was impossible to say. Sister Iris was watching from a corner, shielding herself with a small tray as if part of the insanity had already come flying her way once this afternoon. Tamaki and Vulcan were laughing uncontrollably, and Lisa, with an arm linked through Vulcan's to use him as some sort of living security blanket, appeared to be the most relaxed he'd seen since she'd been here. A right shame he was about to ruin it utterly, and with extreme prejudice.

Licht was Licht. Only Vulcan could reliably fathom what went on inside his head. He seemed at least mildly amused, though.

As for Shinra and Arthur themselves…

To no surprise at all, they were at each other's throats. Literally. If Takehisa didn't know any better, he would have thought they were moments away from strangling each other, what with the grabbing and the choke holds and all other sorts of nonsense that should not be taking place in the dining area. Perfectly viable when he had them spar with each other on the roof, despite the complete lack of any sort finesse, but if they broke something in here he'd have their hides.

Then they'd _wish _he was letting them spar with each other on the roof.

He was used to seeing backs straighten and salutes fly when he entered a room, but there was always a certain satisfaction at seeing Arthur and Shinra fly apart at Ōbi's sharp snarl. All Takehisa had to do was thumb a gesture at the grocery bags and there was a mad rush from almost everyone to grab them and put them away. There was an exasperated shriek from the kitchen partway through the process. Given the pitch, it could only be Tamaki.

"How in the world did they come back from the store with only half a bag of shrimp chips? This bag is huge! Who ate them?"

Takehisa dared to shoot a look across the room to Ōbi. The Captain met him halfway, and he looked entirely unrepentant.

"I _told_ you, you knight bastard! I didn't eat the last ones! And if I did, I sure as shit wouldn't have left the empty bag in the cupboard like an idiot!"

"Except that the COs were both out, so that gets rid of two possible bandits. But not you, devil."

Because of course someone would have to hover over these two for them to behave when within a fifty feet of each other.

"Oh, I swear—"

"Shut _up!_" Maki. That was definitely Maki. At her wits end, _finally_. "They are one room over, and can hear us! We are already on the Lieutenant's shit list, and I don't want to give him another reason to be mad!"

So that row in the dining room was over _chips? _ He wasn't as deeply surprised as he should have been, but now he could foresee some rookies washing all the cathedral's floors as punishment. By hand. No mops allowed.

Fortunately for them, the whole crew was on their best behavior for the rest of the day. Even Tamaki's curse minded its manners, mostly.

It wouldn't be until much later that night, nursing cups of coffee and sitting on opposite sides of a massive stack of paperwork, that Ōbi would broach the topic with him again.

"So, if I bring home strays to build Company 8," and the way he said it sounded an awful lot to Takehisa like he was coming around to the idea, "then what does that make you?"

Takehisa didn't even take his eyes off the sheets of paper in front of him. He had given this quite a bit of thought already.

"The theory still holds."

A surprised grunt from the other side of the table.

"You sure you should be agreeing to that?" And Ōbi leaned to the side to stare at him around the stack. "I'm gonna have to do something about that self-worth problem you have."

"Don't be ridiculous." He reached for the next file on autopilot. "I was your first stray. I just didn't know it, yet."

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**AN:**

**Just in case y'all didn't notice, Ōbi is my favorite. It's gonna be hard for me to not write him. XD**

**Also, watching Laser Eyes Hinawa bury a clipboard in a TV is still one of my favorite parts of the anime.**


	2. Chapter 2 - Lion's Den

**Iris learns to find her voice. Scraping together the courage takes longer than she'd like, but goes better than expected.**

**Also, a wee bit wetter.**

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When she had been selected to join the 8th Fire Soldier Brigade, Iris had expected many things.

The facility was not one of them. She was led to believe that Company 8 was the newest of all the districts, having been crafted from the areas of the 1st, 4th, and the area almost entirely surrounding the 7th. As the newest company, she also assumed they would have the newest facility. That was…_not_…the case? She wasn't judging, just… expecting different.

She arrived only a few weeks after they were made official, and it was evident that the residents were still in the middle of overhauling their "new" space. There were boxes, cleaning supplies, and whole sets of tools she could not name.

Most of the Sisters who trained for the Special Fire Force came from the Holy Sol Temple through either the 1st or the 6th, before being dispatched to their assigned companies. Iris had done this, _barely_; even after several years, she was still one of the St. Raffles Convent "lost children," with all the stigma that came with it. It was rarely overt—at least, not from the nuns or priests— although other children weren't always so nice, especially not to a small, shy girl with an odd fascination of fire who was one of only two survivors. And the only survivor within teasing reach; Hibana had started making her own way years ago, and left the church behind. Mostly.

Hibana was also tall, and beautiful, and confident in her place within the world, and would have brooked no teasing whatsoever.

Still, Iris bore it. She was strong enough for that, at least. Even if they thought she was _terribly_ unlucky, for more than just herself, she bore it, and thrived. She was good, and pious, and quiet, which certainly caused no friction among the instructors in the 1st's churches. Whispering peers aside, she was well taken care of.

A tiny part of her, that was grossly less forgiving that she should be, wondered if her assignment here was their way of sweeping her, and as such the last remnants of the catastrophe of St. Raffles, as far from the main core of the Church of Sol as possible.

She brushed this idea aside, and was determined not to give it another sordid thought. Not one.

It wouldn't be until much later when she would even be given the chance.

The priest that drove her to the 8th didn't speak much during the trip, said nothing as he helped her with her luggage, and had sighed exhaustedly upon taking a look at the other equipment in the back of the vehicle. He was transporting not just her, but what appeared to be a very hefty batch of baptized gear; this was as close as Iris had been to something like a core annihilating pile bunker, and it felt lethal just to look at it, baptized or not. Iris figured that all together, the cargo must easily outweigh herself, and probably also the priest. Possibly the two of them together. They were not outside alone long enough for that to become an issue, as a head poked out of the open Matchbox bay door.

The residents here were _almost_ exactly what she expected.

Even at a solemn place like Company 1, Fire Soldiers were still _soldiers_; a whole slew of people fit enough to combat Infernals with their bare hands, if they didn't have any number of weapons or pyrokinetic abilities at their disposal. Never mind simply physical expression, Fire Soldiers carried themselves with all the confidence of people who had thrown their lives on the line multiple times, and come out the other side both not too worse for the wear, but with other lives delivered safely with it. And then they did it again. And again. It was the kind of slowly cured courage that seeped irrepressibly into everything they did. It had certainly made an impact on quite a lot of residents from the convents.

Iris' first impression of Company 8 did not deviate from this particular expectation in the slightest. The man that came out of the Matchbox bay was tall, really tall. Like, Captain Burns tall (even if she had only seen Captain Burns once, it was enough to make an impression). Captain Burns big, too, if not bigger. It was apparent even at the ten paces from the open bay to the curb; even standing next to the priest, she felt absolutely dwarfed once he was close enough to engage the two of them in a proper greeting. He had the upper part of his jumpsuit unzipped and tied around his waist, which had the unfortunate effect of also taking with it any rank defining insignia that might let her know who she was speaking to. She straightened her back, just a little (which she had to do anyway if she wanted to look up at him). When in doubt, "address up"; if it's not somebody of rank then you just made them feel a little self-important. If it is, at least you haven't caused any insult.

"G'morning! I'm going to assume you're Sister Iris?" His hands flew through the sign to Sol with the comfort of someone who had either embraced the doctrine, been raised in it, or both. She returned the gesture smartly. Size aside, the man had a broad, lopsided smile and an easy set to his shoulders that spoke of someone who was either very good at handling stress, or didn't have a lot of it in the first place. First Class Fire Soldier, then? Given he had come from the apparatus bay, maybe the Engineer? He extended his hand. "Akitaru Ōbi, Captain of the 8th and its resident bunch of weirdos."

_Never mind._ Just her luck…

"Yes. A pleasure to meet you." Iris reached for his hand with as little hesitation as possible. She could feel Hibana rolling her eyes at her from wherever she was. Yes, the shyness was still there. Given her recent abrupt career change, she may have to set it aside much sooner than she was comfortable with.

To say that she shook his hand was a bit of an overstatement, at least on her part. Rather, his palm swallowed her fingers, and then took her hand (and wrist and _arm_) for a ride. Not boorish or rough by any means, quite the opposite; the handshake of a nice person, even if there was _no way_ she would have been able to move that hand one iota in either direction on her own. Unlike Captain Burns, whose name did not match up with the projection of cold untouchability, Captain Ōbi was unflinchingly warm. Approachable. The handshake was brief, but Iris was feeling better about this whole prospect already, and that was quite the feat for an acute introvert. The calm, immovable eye of the storm was right here, and if this was going to be the person she followed into smoke, she was oddly okay with that.

Right now, as she stood on the sunny sidewalk outside, she was okay with it. She doubted her nerves would hold up so well once they were all actually dispatched.

The priest cleared his throat, and gave Ōbi a stiff nod.

"Captain, we have sent your gear as well, newly issued and baptized. It is all rather heavy, though…" If the priest was fishing for an offer to carry any or all of it so he wouldn't have to, Captain Ōbi was way out in front of him. If he felt any of the priest's prickly eagerness to be done with all of this, it was beneath his notice.

"Oh great! We've been waiting for these." He thumbed carefully over the labels on a couple of the boxes, counting as he went. "I can just about feel Hinawa's impatience from here." And he tossed Iris a wink over his shoulder, as if she had even the vaguest idea who Hinawa was. "He's gonna take half of this apart and reassemble it before the night is out, I can tell." He gave Iris another grin. "I'll get these inside, and we can show you around, hm?"

Like, move all of this by himself? That was bold. And seemed a good, quick way to throw one's back out.

The old priest adjusted his glasses, even stiffer now, whether eager to leave or ruffled at Captain Ōbi's complete disregard for his disdain was impossible to tell. Could also be both, and Iris refused to let that sting a little.

"Sir, would not more soldiers make it go faster? 'Many hands make light work,' yes?"

The Captain rolled one broad shoulder in lieu of a shrug, unworried, and still smiling.

"No need to bother them for something like this. I got it."

Iris was rather firmly on the priest's side of this conversation; this was approaching a hundred kilograms of equipment. Even without the weight to consider, there was simply no way he had enough hands for all of it.

And then he began what was going to be a long, pulse-pounding couple weeks of Iris simply being impressed by all her new teammates.

He managed to grab a very large, heavy box of what appeared to be ammunition and balance it on his head. This was impressive enough on its own, but then he grabbed the massive, heavy shield in one hand, tucked the pile bunker _under the same arm,_ and slid his other hand under the last two boxes. Iris swallowed hard; that was five trips for a normal person, and he had managed to lift it all in _one._

And then he had looked at her, realized she had a suitcase, and without any judgment or hubris asked, "oops, sorry I didn't ask. Do you need help with that?"

Iris was just barely able to squeak out a "no." Even if she did, she was _certainly_ not about to make this man help her with her stuff while he was handling… all of that!

The priest managed to choke out a surprised, if halfway polite, goodbye, and wasted no time in driving away. Her one last immediate, tangible lifeline to her old life, and it was certainly not about to wait for her to be ready for it to leave. Her new life wasn't waiting for her either, it seemed. Captain Ōbi canted his head towards the Matchbox bay (_somehow,_without dislodging the box balanced there) and led them inside. Even as encumbered as he was, keeping up with his long strides took a little work.

Unlike the fire cathedral itself, the Matchbox in the apparatus bay was new. Iris took a moment to stare as the Captain shed most of his new equipment near a long, orderly workbench in the back, before shouldering the box of ammunition. She hurried to move after him, despite his apparent patience as she looked around.

"You came at a good time. There's still a lot to do until this place is a hundred percent up and running, but I think both Hinawa and Oze are getting a little stir-crazy. Your arrival helps breaks the monotony." He paused to set the box just inside the door to a long hallway that sat just off the apparatus bay. It seemed like just another equipment room, until she noticed the wall at the far end.

It was firearms, floor to ceiling.

She felt her hands reflexively tighten around the handle on her suitcase. If there was one stark wake up call that she was no longer in a temple any more, it was surely that.

Captain Ōbi followed her line of sight, before giving her a soft snort and a small smile.

"That's Hinawa's gun wall. You'll know when he's in a really salty mood, because he'll come down here to the range to decompress."

So this was a whole range. She wondered how much of the equipment she'd brought with her would end up in here.

"Friendly tip: don't touch the gun wall. Hinawa gets… _particular_ about it. And since he's our resident senior firearms expert, I let him dictate how it gets maintained. Oze's no slouch either, but even she keeps her hands clear without direction from him." The full grin came back in short order as Captain Ōbi rubbed the back of his neck. "At the same time, the kitchen belongs to Hinawa, too. We rotate shifts for dinner, and everyone has this or that favorite cup, but make no mistake: this is my company, but _that_ is Hinawa's kitchen. He's a damn good cook, but he can get aggressive about it. He's never mentioned it, and will probably deny it if I bring it up, but Oze and I have just let him have it."

Iris didn't think that would be a problem at all. If she had her hands on a firearm, something had gone terribly wrong somewhere. This was the third time he'd mentioned this Hinawa person, and so far it painted a picture of someone a little… stiff. Also important, considering the number of times he'd come up.

It was also slightly worrying that the man had somehow managed to lay claim to the entire kitchen.

Captain Ōbi led them out of the range and into the building proper. He regarded her over his shoulder as they went.

"If I may ask, how did you choose this particular path? I barely had to file the paperwork before you were assigned to us. For most of the crew I get to pick, but almost as soon as I finalized an opening for clergy you were on your way."

"Um…" Iris didn't have a clue how to answer this. What happened was simple; how she felt about it was not, and it would take her a couple cups of tea and a good hour to air her issues with somebody willing to listen.

Right now she had no cups of tea, and until the end of this hallway with her new boss who was probably not fishing for a long story. More than that, while he hadn't gotten any less friendly over the last five minutes, Captain Ōbi had her pinned under a look that could best be described as piercingly appraising.

"I was not currently assigned to a permanent post, so once the 8th had an opening, they sent me. I appreciate the opportunity." While the first part was about as diplomatic a smokescreen for her own conflicting feelings as she could make it, the last part was not a lie; while this had not been where she had seen her life going, she believed it was important work. The sisters who were placed out in companies were able to assist people directly, on a daily basis, which Iris whole-heartedly believed that was the best work the Temple could do. She was excited to try.

"Hm." That was clearly not quite what he was reaching for, and the appraising look did not abate at all until he turned to steer them around a corner. This next hallway was brightly lit, a combination of wood walls and laminate tile floor. It felt very much like well-trafficked common space. It was hard not to feel like an intruder here, like she was in someone else's house without an explicit invitation.

It was her "house" too, now. She was determined to make the most of it.

Captain Ōbi lengthened his stride, seemingly headed for an open door halfway down the hall. He didn't wait until he was there to start addressing people, though.

"Hinawa! Maki! Come out and be social!"

Iris was glad she walking behind him so he couldn't see her jump. The man could roar. He had also managed to spirit her suitcase out of her hands, leaving it against the wall and out of the way before beckoning for her to follow. She didn't realize how much clutching it had relieved her nervousness. Now she just felt exposed. There was some stirring in the room up ahead, including one somewhat put-upon sigh.

"Well, he can really only mean one of us." A man's voice. Given that Captain Ōbi had only mentioned two other people so far, that must be Hinawa. "I am not social."

"No, I do mean _both_ of you. Even if you're going to slink away to the office, at least greet Sister Iris first." Captain Ōbi had made it to the doorway and was giving someone a pointed stare that she was glad that she wasn't standing in front of, hands on his hips. There was a grunt, and the sound of chair legs scraping against the floor.

"I would lead with that part next time."

In a concerted effort to not hide her hands in her robes, Iris kept them clasped together in front of her. The Captain had moved from his place right in the middle of the doorway, with a cant of his head that indicated she should come out of the hallway and be introduced.

A couple moments later, and Iris was rethinking several critical life choices.

Captain Ōbi had simultaneously reaffirmed her preconception of Fire Soldiers and emboldened her flickering confidence that this was the place for her to be. Her next introduction both added to the stereotype, and shattered that self-confidence onto the hallway wall behind her.

There were two people in this room, but one of them drew her attention almost immediately, in the same way that her instincts would have alerted her to the most lethal hazard in her immediate vicinity. Everything else could wait. It was almost fortunate that Captain Ōbi had redefined her understanding of what the limits of both "tall" and "muscular" were in just the last ten minutes, or she would have been significantly more intimidated than she already was, and that didn't seem possible.

While still noticeably shorter than Captain Ōbi, the man standing in the kitchen was still significantly taller than herself; she didn't think she stood much higher than his shoulders. Unlike the Captain, he kept his jumpsuit zipped up clear to his neck; while a great bit more modest than Captain Ōbi's black shirt that most definitely should come in a larger size, it did little to hide the broad shoulders underneath. His hat would have been silly enough to soften his look, except that she was pretty sure his eyes could laser holes into someone from an entire block away. Iris was certain that a piece of her soul flew away in fright upon entering the kitchen. He took the Captain's appraising look and turned it into something almost painfully sharp, capable of stripping a person of weaker will down to their most emotionally unstable state. Like he could peel back someone's thoughts and target their insecurity directly.

She tried not to flinch and squeak when he reached up to adjust his glasses.

In an effort to look at anything else in the room, her eyes flew immediately to the stitching on his chest. Given the amount of stars and stripes there, that meant this man was Lieutenant—

"Takehisa Hinawa, Ōbi's second in command here at the 8th." He regarded her for a moment more, even if it felt much longer than that, before giving her a polite, perfect, rigid bow, deep enough to be considered respectful, and shallow enough to tell Iris exactly where she suddenly fit in to this hierarchy. She was glad the sign to Sol was second-nature for her, because most higher forms of thought were hiding as far inside of herself as possible, hopefully where this man could not find them.

"Sister Iris, and it's my pleasure." She managed to not stutter or squeak through her introduction. That was progress. A mental image of Hibana dropping her head onto a table in frustration came entirely unbidden, and it had the effect of straightening her back slightly. She was trying, alright? Captain Ōbi was intimidating because he was big, loud, and physical in ways no clergy she'd had constant exposure to was physical.

Lieutenant Hinawa was intimidating because he looked like he ate people's warm emotions for sustenance, leaving only the sharp shards of everything else behind.

And yes, she realized she was being rude. And quite possibly projecting; he could turn out to be not that bad.

The second person in the room was a welcome diversion. Tall and pretty, like Hibana, but she looked friendly and outgoing. She had some of Captain Ōbi's warm approachableness too, despite appearing significantly closer in age to Iris than to him. Also had her jumpsuit zipped up to her neck, but she moved with the same athletic deliberateness as the rest of them.

"Hello! Maki Oze, First Class Fire Soldier here at the 8th. Nice to meet you!" She snapped a sharp salute, before offering her hand. Iris gave her a genuine smile. Another nice person, but oh goodness was she in for a surprise when she shook that hand. Despite appearances, with her long thick hair and bright purple eyes, the soft skin of her warm hands belied the surprising amount of power there. Iris tried not to squeak in shock. Gentle, but firm.

Iris was starting to feel like a small, soft marshmallow person in this place.

Luckily, the group didn't linger too long in the confines of the kitchen. Maki snatched Iris' suitcase out of the hall, showed her to her new room, and then gave her a tour. The cathedral was much larger on the inside than it looked; she could already tell that it would take her a while to find her way around. Maybe she'd be allowed to wander around by herself? Hopefully getting lost a few times would help her find her way around when it really mattered. In the meantime, Maki was a patient, kind tour guide, and let her look around slowly as they went through. She had a penchant for lighthearted small talk, which Iris was surprised to appreciate.

Lighthearted or not, Iris swiftly came to the realization of the biggest difference between these people and herself.

They knew exactly where they stood in the world, in the organization, in this company. With each other. And they weren't afraid to say it. It went both ways up and down the chain of command. She stayed respectful, but Maki made her opinions perfectly clear, sometimes she got what she wanted, sometimes one—or both—COs stubbornly stuck to their guns, but even a "no" was followed shortly by an explanation.

Iris did not have the confidence to look any one of her team members in the eye and tell them "I disagree." Not yet.

Maybe _never,_ for Lieutenant Hinawa.

It was… a markedly different sort of interaction than she was used to, _especially _on calls. Emergency scenes were _loud_, both the emergency itself (for them, it was typically immediately Infernal-related), or because they had to yell to be heard, either to cover volume or distance. Emergency or not, Iris was finding it difficult to just shout at her superiors, even if crossing distances to get herself heard was dangerous, time consuming, or otherwise impractical (which were all also fast ways of earning a paint-peeling stare, or worse, from the Lieutenant). At the end of one call, where they had found themselves facing not only the Infernal from their initial dispatch but one from an onlooker who had infernalized at their backs, and Iris, as the rearmost crewmember, had been the only one to notice it happening and her first reflex had just been to clutch Captain Ōbi's sleeve, he had clapped her on the shoulder with a rough grin and told her, "use your outside voice next time."

Iris didn't have an outside voice. She had just her _one_ voice, and that one was quiet enough to be used inside a temple. If clergy were lambs, then she had just been pushed into a den of lions. Respectful lions, but they blew her away regularly. She hadn't learned how to roar, yet.

Which wasn't usually a problem, until it _was._

A good deal of downtime was spent getting the cathedral into working order. Equipment for calls had been the first thing properly inventoried, and the Matchbox had been stocked just about as soon as Iris had initially arrived with their batch of gear, but improving the infrastructure of the building was a slow, cooperative group project. Because the other three did a great deal of the heavy grunt work, Iris had taken it upon herself to do a lot of the cleaning. Which also meant that she could get the cathedral's courtyard ready to perform a proper Purification Ceremony. It was small, the fountain didn't work and the trees needed some pruning, but they were otherwise in good health, and the stone tiles just needed a good scrubbing. Iris was excited to see what it could become.

Until the grunt work started to infringe into her cleaned areas.

It started as one wayward box set aside in the hallway. Iris had quickly learned not to attempt to move containers of unknown contents in the cathedral, as they were quite often so heavy that even leaning all her weight into one budged it not a single centimeter. That was fine; one of the others would be along in short order to put it where it was supposed to go. Except that the pile grew over the coming days. That was fine too, navigating the hallway wasn't difficult. Whomever was stacking the pile had kept a means of egress open. Whether it was Captain Ōbi or Lieutenant Hinawa was unclear; even if the latter probably had a tape measure ready to ensure that the proper space was given in the hallway for people to pass, if he couldn't just eyeball it out of habit, the former was a stickler for fire code that could give even the Lieutenant a run for his money; blocking doorways and means of escape with heavy objects was a quick way to a brief, friendly safety lecture (never mind that Iris had watched the Captain make an escape right through a plate glass window once, to Hinawa's express consternation). All that to say that the boxes were probably going to be in the hall until one or another person Not Named Iris moved them, and that was fine.

And then the boxes started spilling into the courtyard itself.

Once enough of them had appeared, it was apparent that they couldn't keep piling them in the hallway, so a new stack began to grow along one of the nearby courtyard walls. Which… did infringe on Iris' direct responsibilities. She had tried again, to no avail, to quietly push a box to the side. It worked about as well as expected, and if a box could be smug, she imagined it would be. Which meant that she would have to work up the nerve to ask one of the others to please not put their project on hers, and to move the boxes already there.

She was not good at asking for favors that inconvenienced others, even if _not_ asking inconvenienced _herself._ Weeks later, and that mental image of Sister Hibana banging her head against a table in frustration leapt to her mind again. She would try, okay? Next morning debrief.

Except that the next morning debrief came and went, even after Captain Ōbi asked specifically if anyone had anything else to address. She stubbed her toe on the edge of a box later that morning. Okay, then the next meeting. She would. Really.

The next day she backed right into the box stack. Never mind the wall of boxes, she herself almost toppled right over. Okay, now she really would address it.

Or not.

The day after, she did end up sprawled across the tiles when she caught her foot trying to pass by the stack. Once she caught her breath and checked herself for any injuries—there were none—she immediately looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Fortunately, given the small size of the crew and the relatively large size of the space they inhabited, everyone else was far out of ear and eye shot. Which was great, since the embarrassed flush of her face was just short of its own ignition ability. She dusted herself off and just… sat, for a moment.

There was a very easy solution. If she could just make her anxiety calm down for half a minute.

Somewhere, Hibana was pulling her hair out. Possibly also screaming.

Hibana never had problems finding her "outside voice."

Tomorrow. At debriefing tomorrow. For sure, this time. There wasn't any reason for it to go badly, that was just the anxiety talking.

"Tomorrow" almost moved up several hours when she went down for dinner. It was Maki's turn, and while Lieutenant Hinawa had long since proven why he commanded most operations in the kitchen, even when he wasn't in it, she was no slouch. She offered to help carry food to the dining room, and Maki almost handed her a tray. Almost.

"Sister Iris, are you limping?"

Oh no.

Iris was about to answer in the negative, she didn't want Maki to worry, but those five words had attracted attention. The quiet conversation at the other end of the dining room had gone absolutely silent, and she could feel both appraising stares burning into the back of her head. It was intimidating enough when it was just one of them, but being subjected to the pointed looks from both officers was not a good place to be, even if they hadn't said a word yet. _Especially_ since they hadn't said a word yet. Because Captain Ōbi was loud in general, and Lieutenant Hinawa had opinions, and without either of those constants she could only fathom the thoughts flying around between them.

It wasn't too late to lie about it…

Maki was still holding both trays of food. They looked heavy, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Sorry, but you are favoring your right leg. I just want to make sure you're okay."

_Oh no._

Yes, her left knee still hurt. She didn't think it had changed her gait enough to be noticed. But Maki had, even through her robes. There was a shifting in presence to the void of sound at her back. Now they knew what to look for, although even if Maki hadn't told them, Iris was sure they would have noticed in short order.

There were three lie detectors in this room, and all of them had names she had become familiar with.

"J-just a little! I tripped in the courtyard. It's nothing to worry about, though! I promise!" Maybe not all the truth, but definitely true nonetheless. She hoped it was enough to get by. "I can still help." She reached for the tray, since Maki hadn't moved an inch.

"Hm." Was Maki's only response, held the previously almost-offered tray high out of Iris' reach, and took the both of them to the dining table herself. Iris made an effort to gently take one of them, to no avail whatsoever, but the gesture did force her to turn just enough to catch a look at the end of the dining hall out of the corner of her eye, and realize that she was very much still the center of attention. She scurried to set the table instead, and certainly did not look any of them in the eye once at all during dinner.

Poor Sister Hibana would have had a stroke out of frustration.

Her attempts to help with clearing the table were similarly disrupted; she was about to stand up from the table with a stack of plates, because whomever cooked shouldn't have to also clean up after everybody. Instead, a hand reached around her to lift the entire stack. Her protest died in throat when she turned, and was greeted immediately with Lieutenant Hinawa's brusque, "don't get up."

So Iris stayed right there on that bench. She felt a whole heap of conflicting emotions. Something like exasperation, because she didn't think she was so frail that she needed to be protected from helping. Even if she quietly checked herself for bruises from the few times she had accidentally bumped into any of these people and there was _no give to them at all…_ okay, so maybe she was _comparatively_ frail. Sitting next to them in the Matchbox still made her feel like a marshmallow. Still intimidated, because these people were impressive. Because any fire within twenty meters of Maki was as good as hers, and if Iris didn't know any better, she'd think she was a Third Gen, not that she'd managed to catch any small flame and make it into a weapon. Because there was a reason that theirs was the only captain in the entire force without an ignition ability, and he held his own anyway, if watching him pull a wooden telephone pole out of the ground wasn't a good reminder. Because Lieutenant Hinawa could bank shot a single bullet around three corners in a narrow alley to hit an Infernal's core a block over and behind a building. Because they could do all that while their lives were being threatened and they didn't flinch or slow down or _anything._ And she was touched that they bothered to notice something as minor as a knee injury. Not even a real injury! Just… sore. Even the lieutenant, in his cold way.

She still wiped down the table and scurried out of there the minute he didn't have a direct line of sight to her.

The next morning's meeting was the usual. Short, nothing new, since the day prior hadn't seen any calls. The end was coming up, and swiftly. Iris bunched her hands into her robes.

"The good news is, we're about to grow a bit bigger." Captain Ōbi leaned back a little in his chair, never mind the obvious irritation it caused Hinawa every time the front legs left the floor. He stayed oddly quiet, though; probably simply satisfied that he actually got Ōbi to sit in a chair at all, instead of hanging from bars. Or sitting _on_ the desk. "The Fire Defense Agency sent me copies of the applications on file for their new batch of recruit graduates. I'll be reviewing them over the next week or so. I've already been cleared to pull a couple, we just have to pick 'em. And beat the other companies to the good ones." He looked pleased. He looked _excited._ It was infectious; despite appearances, she didn't dislike it here. The prospect of growing the company was nice.

It meant having to stay on top of her responsibilities, though, and to that end…

"Now that the gritty is done, anyone have anything they need to touch base on?"

"Um…"

And _immediately_, she drew every eye on the room. Oh goodness. Whether it was because she had never said anything before, or because she was still on their radar from last night, or maybe both, she couldn't say. Regardless, the effect was enough scrutiny to make her want to crawl under the desk.

Sister Hibana would have stood _on_ the desk long ago and made a pronouncement, not meekly asked for a favor.

Iris laced her fingers together. She was not Hibana. Never would be, in many ways. But still.

"Th-there are a lot of really big heavy boxes in the hall, and in the courtyard." But still, she'd try it her own way, instead. "The ones in the courtyard, especially, make it difficult to do any real work in there." Her way could, in fact, also stand to be just a wee bit louder. "Especially when I have to do the Purification Ceremony in the morning." She'd have to actually speak up to be heard, after all. Even if it drew much more attention than she wanted.

Captain Ōbi looked genuinely surprised.

"Oop, I forgot those were there. Sorry, my bad. I can move those for you."

"O-okay." Well, that went better than expected. Not that she really knew what to expect. "Thank you."

"Wait…" And Maki's appraising look from last night came back, more suspicious than ever. "Is that what you tripped over in the courtyard?"

"Um. Yes? But—"

Ōbi leaned forward fast enough to slam the front legs of his chair down hard, and loud.

"Damn, is that how you injured your knee yesterday?"

"I mean, yes, but I'm—"

"Shit, we should have taken care of that a while ago." Ōbi stood, scratching the back of his neck. "I guess we have our group project today, then."

"A good portion of those boxes contain the supplies for redoing much of the courtyard, including the new pipework." Hinawa adjusted his glasses, regarding her before returning his attention to his clipboard. "I did not prioritize getting it done, so I will take responsibility for most of it."

Iris didn't really know what to think of any of this, other than a sense of shocked relief as her anxiety floated out the window. If she had known it would be this easy, she would have gathered the courage to open her mouth more weeks ago.

Ōbi was already shucking off the upper portion of his jumpsuit, his usual reaction to impending work more strenuous than lifting a stack of papers.

"Oh, so if we clear all the boxes out, we could get the plumbing there fully laid today, huh?"

"If by 'we,' you mean the three of us," and Lieutenant Hinawa used his pen to gesture between himself, Maki, and Iris, "then yes. _You _are not allowed anywhere near that venture." He pulled a single, specific file from the stack on the desk, adding it to his clipboard. "You can move the boxes out, though."

"_Excuse_ me, I can lay pipe."

"No, you cannot." And the look he shot the captain could best be described as judgmental. "If we let you, it will be a disaster."

Captain Ōbi hooked his thumbs into the loops on his jumpsuit.

"I was a firefighter for years before I came here. If there is anyone here with actual experience with water supplies, it's me."

"I can see the immediate and obvious differences between even the large diameter fire supply hose and a permanent metal or PVC pipe buried in the ground." Iris could tell he was slowly approaching Done With This Conversation. "If this were a temporary, above-ground supply I'd let you have it, but it isn't."

"You have no faith in me at all."

"I put faith in you every time I stand behind that shield." Something entirely unseen shot between him and Maki, who took the hint and headed for the door, pushing Iris out with her. Okay, so they were dismissed. It was a good thing Maki was better at reading him than most. "But I also remember you trying to set up the automatic door rigging for the Matchbox bay."

"That turned out fine! Your reflexes are too good for you to be killed by something as simple as a prematurely closing door anyways."

To Iris' surprise, it wasn't so much that they were dismissed; this was a group exodus, as she could hear both heavy sets of boots following down the hallway behind them. Maki and Ōbi started in on the box pile as soon as they hit the courtyard hallway, but Hinawa stopped and passed Iris the folder from the office.

"These are the blueprints and utilities plans for the cathedral. Look for one towards the top titled 'plumbing'; we'll need it for this project." At her unsaid question, because she wasn't up for pushing her good luck just yet, he added, "I pulled them from the city records when I got here. They have come in handy more than once, and they likely will again."

"Yes, sir."

He regarded her long enough for it to start to become uncomfortable, before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose again.

"I know I'm… hm. And Ōbi's…" He seemed to rethink his entire sentence before starting again. "Don't let Ōbi and I's vocal incongruity keep you quiet. We can be stubborn, and difficult, but I promise both of us are better at listening than we seem like we are. If you're going to get good at this job, you'll need to find your voice, the louder the better."

"Yes, sir!"

"Hm." He made to leave her in the hallway, to help the others move the boxes. "One last thing," and the look he shot her over his shoulder made her back straighten, perhaps audibly, "_do not_ allow Ōbi to see those plans. I would like to have this done by sundown. If Ōbi even remembers to ask about them, he's only going to skim it, and this will be more mess than mission."

"Um, yes. Copy that." She wasn't really sure how she was supposed to keep files from someone who could pull rank on both her and the lieutenant both at the same time, but she'd try. Maybe.

The boxes moved out of the courtyard swiftly, which was as much about teamwork as it was that Ōbi could move five or six boxes for every one or two that Maki and Hinawa carried. Iris was pleased; she couldn't do much more than sweep up after them, but it was nice to have the space reclaimed.

And then she watched Captain Ōbi start to gently pull up tiles on the ground, stacking them in a corner nearby. She must have squeaked or gasped or something, because he shot her a look, grinning.

"Don't worry about Hinawa. 'I can't lay pipe,' my ass. Look, you can see 'em come from the floor above, and they go underground right here. You use the water for your ceremonies, yeah? Just give us a few hours, and we'll have this back up and running for you."

He was confident, and sure of himself, and despite Lieutenant Hinawa's warning, he seemed quite sure about what he was doing. She certainly couldn't dispute the logic. She did have those plumbing plans, though…

By dinner that day, she had seen more airborne water than she ever had, short of actual driving rain. Captain Ōbi managed to crack a pipe, which sent huge spouts of water spraying in every direction except into the rest of the fountain. They managed to cap it and fix the damage, but not before Ōbi looked like he had just stepped out of a pool, grinning ear to ear. Hinawa did not look much better, with his bangs stuck to his face, and was wearing an expression more reminiscent of a long-haired cat dunked into a bathtub. And the shouting continued, unabated. Maki looked like she was politely trying not to laugh as she and Iris mopped the stone tiles dry. The captain was summarily banished from wet work, much to his dismay. Iris was surprised, however, that he had a good eye and steady hand for pruning the courtyard's trees. It definitely explained the occasional pots of well-tended plants dotted around the cathedral.

The fountains did work again, though.

Which Iris enjoyed later that night, sitting in the freshly cleaned courtyard. She liked the look of it, cozy in size and feel, if only because it was the result of her coworkers coming to her aid. Which was a new sensation, such a show of force when she asked for help. She didn't fool herself into believing it would be that easy every time, but at least she knew her own voice worked just fine. It still wasn't a roar, yet, but it was loud enough to be heard in this den.

And as long as she was heard, she'd be fine.

* * *

**AN:**

**This turned out... much longer than intended, peeps. I started writing and I just could not stop. I'm sure it's all over the place.**

**WHELP. XD**

**Yell at them, Iris! They don't have egos delicate enough to bruise; let them know they're being inconsiderate!**

**And then stay out of the way as Follows No Written Directions Dad thinks he knows how to be a plumber. XD**

**Also, about the kitchen: the fire department in my city has a tradition that whomever cooks for that shift doesn't do the post-dinner dishes. They can clean what they cooked in as they go, but everyone else clears and cleans the dining room. "Whomever cooks don't clean." Every fire department is going to have a different approach to this, but I'm giving it to Company 8 because that's the kind of "spread the chores around" mentality that they seem like they'd embrace.**


	3. Chapter 3 - Questline

It took all castes to make a castle function properly.

From the servants on up to the king, everybody was important. Some were just significantly more important than others.

Thus, today, the Knight King's daily royal task was less glamorous than it could have been. Imperative, so that the castle itself did not descend straight into barbarism, but bland. At least he had not been saddled with more menial, debasing assignments. They had lesser creatures handling those today, as was proper.

Normally, nobody commanded a king. A knight, however, followed commands from his lord, and thus the Knight King Arthur Boyle found himself in an odd position. He was a king, as decreed when his lord father and lady mother had appointed him as the one true heir of their castle. A king by the infallible right of succession. Knights, however, frequently ranged far afield, as the forces of injustice seldom nested in a single place for long. Hence the Knight King found himself a great distance from his own castle, and under the immediate stewardship of another lord.

This turn of events was… eventually much more boon than bust. While the Knight King was initially somewhat disappointed in lodging, the Eighth King was honest, fair, and good spirited. He had a true crusader's heart, which the Knight King was always able to appreciate. After having contact with the neighboring monarchs, he was sure he had chosen the correct lord to swear his fealty. Sure, they weren't at war with either the First King or the Fifth Princess anymore, and the Seventh Emperor was truly _mighty_. He had served his time under the Forth King as a squire, and they owed the Sixth Queen for saving… well, never mind that. All that to say that while the Eighth Kingdom was smaller than the rest, he liked to think they were the fiercest. Almost more a guild than a whole kingdom, but he had already been dragged through enough to have some bragging rights among his peers. The Temple had even allowed them sanctioned access to crusade within the hellish Nether. _Twice._ He would rather be nowhere else, and would swear fealty to no other king.

Himself and his lord and lady parents duly excluded.

Which is why he did his assigned tasks with dignity and valor, even if they were slightly beneath him. Because the castle amassed a large amount of old scrolls, missives, and other articles of communication that had to occasionally be disposed of, lest they accumulate (unsightly and unsanitary) or become lost (and open for their enemies to make use of any sensitive state secrets on those missives). His task today was to ensure that such scrolls and other articles were promptly and properly removed from service.

Also, it would be… unwise to refuse, and certainly bad for his state of good health. Tasks like this rarely came from the Eighth King himself; as was proper, he had better things to attend to, and as such he typically entrusted dolling out quests to a trusted subordinate. The subordinate who tended the quest board, in this case, just so happened to be the King's High Advisor. Who also held the titles of Prime Hunter, Grand Judge, and Executioner. Who was also an esteemed warmage. Who also had the sense of humor of a very angry bear.

Needless to say, the High Advisor was not someone who got crossed by anybody who wished to keep their dignity—or skin—intact.

The glasses and calm voice were a ruse; the man could look across the court and see weaknesses of the soul as if they were written upon someone's face, and typically reacted accordingly. Namely, picking those same weaknesses apart directly. The Knight King would have thought it was sorcery, but the High Advisor's specific arcane gifts tended to be much less subtle and much more loud and painful. Or lethal. The Knight King was not at all pleased to even privately acknowledge the bruises he nursed from the man's corporal variety of discipline. Even knowing that the High Advisor was unlikely to kill him without express permission from the Eighth King (who, in turn, was thankfully merciful and even more unlikely to order such an execution), looking down the barrel of any one of the warmage's firearms still made his gut clench.

It was fortunate, then, given the High Advisor's incredible tendency towards perfect order, that swooping in and collecting disposable papers from near his desk was a quick, easy job, even with him sitting right there in his chair. The Knight King still did not hesitate to leave the vicinity post haste.

Few others elicited that same sort of response. Not even the Eighth King, and while they were blessedly brief, he had his moments of… _loud_ ill-temper. Luckily, they rarely lasted longer than it took to resolve the issue before his inborn good disposition again took hold of his senses. This was how he found him in his office, listening to the raucous music he was partial to, casually lifting what must have been a good fifteen stone of weight with each arm while balancing one or another pot of his beloved herbs on his head. Odd as it was, the Knight King could not dispute the results. The Eighth King flashed him a toothy grin as he entered, and otherwise paid him little mind as he collected the scrolls into his burlap sack and made on his way.

From the highest reaches of the court on down, this task now got… interesting.

Given the hierarchy enforced by the Eighth King—and ducking that in any really meaningful way was one of the few quick methods to agitate his temper, even if just a little—the next person in order of importance sat just underneath the High Advisor, both in appreciable rank and in length of tenure at the castle. If the Eighth King could reliably reach to his right and expect to find the High Advisor, then the High Advisor could reach to his right and find the castle's Witch.

As far as the Knight King was concerned, "Witch" was her secondary nature.

Because only the High Advisor was fearsome enough to command the utter loyalty of an ogress.

The castle's Witch was a proper ogre mage, of such skill that not only was her disguise as a beautiful princess absolutely infallible (until one was unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of a fist, and quickly realize that those were not the delicate, unworked hands of a princess), but her magic had not wavered even once in the Knight King's time here, although her fearsome temper did occasionally betray the illusion. Even the High Advisor was fooled, or else just distinctly chose not to care enough to address it.

He supposed that worked just fine in the man's favor, as any personal slight the warmage chose to ignore could be reliably avenged by the ogress some short period of time beyond that, as his introduction to the castle's inner workings had swiftly—and painfully—taught him (that should have been his first warning as well; if an ogre mage of her ferocity jumped when the High Advisor said "jump," he should have known the man would be no less brutal with him). She was equally as ferocious in her defense of the dignity of the Eighth King, which did, begrudgingly, raise her status, as far as the Knight King was concerned.

While she had little ability as an evoker, she had taught him the power behind those who could ensorcel the abilities of others, having watched her turn the flames of others' spells into her own weapons, when she didn't simply summon elemental spirits right out of the raw energy.

The mixture of honed skill, inhuman strength, and sorcery was a formidable combination, indeed.

Fortunately, she didn't tend to accumulate much in the name of scrolls to be discarded, and happen to do a lot of her work within arm's reach of the High Advisor; the Knight King did not have to collect anything from her separately.

He made his way down the hall, with all dignity expected from one in his position. He was not quite halfway through this task, but it was going well. Assuming the other denizens of the castle did not impede him, this would be done long before the afternoon.

Which, of course, meant that the next person to cross his path was indeed an impediment.

Quite literally. Right in the middle of the hallway.

The only creature that the Knight King ever objected to having a station in a lofty place like a castle was surely this Devil. There were many devils, most easily fell under a knight's blade, but this one was powerful enough to have Devil as a title (which both the Eighth King and the High Advisor had been known to use, much to the fiend's own consternation), and was stubborn enough to _not die_ even when an _entire sword was stabbed through his chest_. A notably lesser blade than the Knight King's holy Excalibur, but still.

And the Knight King refused to acknowledge the discomfort felt that someone else stabbed the Devil. He was _their _Devil; if anyone had the right to purge him, it was the purview of those from the Eighth Kingdom, and no other.

All other devil slayers could politely keep their swords to themselves, please, thank you, and sod off.

In the meantime, he suffered the disgrace of his presence.

In the middle of the hallway.

Mopping floors.

This was the kind of menial task the Knight King was glad he hadn't been assigned (at least yet today, since the High Advisor could be fickle with quest allotments). He did consider it the perfect task for a sharp-toothed, carnivorous hellspawn who had the audacity to live in a vaunted place like a fire cathedral with the rest of them. The Knight King would have just as soon not let him into the building, but the Eighth King had a big, soft heart that apparently had room for everyone, even devils, and by his endless mercy the fiend was allowed to stay.

Also, the Devil was here first.

By _one day_, but who was keeping track.

Where was he, now?

Ah yes. On his way to finish his quest. With a pit lord in his way.

The demon sent him a glare and bared his teeth, and then turned his back on him to continue his mopping. The Knight King smirked; might as well spare a moment to remind him of his place here.

"Enjoying your manual labor, Devil?"

"Shut the hell up." He began to mop faster.

"At least you've been given a task befitting your station."

"Don't you have your own chores to do? It would get you out of my face."

"I am almost done with mine, but enjoy mopping the _entire cathedral_ by yourself."

"You realize that is not your only chore for today, right? I bet you only read the first thing on the list, and forgot everything else."

"Hmph. I know my quest."

"'Quest?' Ugh, you make my head hurt." Somehow, he got even more aggressive with the mopping. "Just keep away from me. I don't want to even be nearby when you get punished for only doing one chore. I mean, I _do_, it will be hilarious, but I don't want to be close enough to catch a punishment with you."

"You can spare me your sympathy. I don't need it from a Devil cleaning the floors beneath my feet."

"I will bury your feet _in_ the floor, up to that stupid onion knot on your head."

"I'd like to see you try."

The Devil gripped the mop handle in such a way that made the Knight King think he might actually test his mettle. He set down his sack, and reached for Excalibur's hilt. Many disparaging things could be said about the fiend, but cowardice was not one of them. Good, then this would be entertaining.

Except that someone's light footsteps could be heard marching down an adjacent hallway. In most cases, this wouldn't bother either Knight or Devil much at all, except that there were a few people in the castle who could either forcefully disrupt or calm this age-old feud between Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil.

The cathedral's Priestess was one of the latter.

"Oh! Hello Shinra, Arthur." She looked between the two of them. "I do hope there's nothing here to be interrupted."

There were no princesses in this castle, but their Priestess was more enough a maiden fair.

Their only holy maiden up until recently (if the Shapeshifter from the First Kingdom even counted), their Priestess occupied a relatively enviable position in the castle. Her rank seemed fluid; while nobody from the Eighth Kingdom truly approached the levels of the High Advisor or the Eighth King, the Priestess seemed to flow around the castle as she saw fit. The few times the Witch found herself as the highest appointed member in the castle, the Priestess followed her orders without question, but whether it was deference to her rank or a simple wish for another to lead were not well defined. The Knight King had watched the High Advisor scold the lot of them (usually himself, the Devil, the Witch and the Shapeshifter) literally right over the Priestess' head, like she wasn't there (except that he had watched the warmage one time pass her some tea _while_ scolding them without even looking in her direction, which meant he was still very much aware of her presence); she often used that time to quietly get out of his way, as would most people who put value on their own lives. She jumped along with the rest of them when he hissed, but if she ever caught any punishment of any kind, it certainly wasn't ever with them, running some number of miles in as many minutes through the neighborhood, doing reps with _the Eighth King's weights_ (no, they were not allowed to take any plates off, and those ten reps better be absolutely perfect), or what have you. It was a nice standing to have, being able to slide right through the ire with little regard. But she was a Priestess, not a soldier, so he supposed that came with certain advantages.

Also, did being a sister to the Fifth Princess then also count her as a princess, too? Was the sister of a princess then not also a princess? How did one define a princess, really? Hm, such a tangled family relation was too difficult to think about.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. The Devil had not relaxed from his stance one evil centimeter.

"Don't worry, Sister. I'm about to mop the floor with Arthur's vapid face, and then we'll be good."

"I think what the Devil really means is that I'm about to put him out with all the other refuse."

She sighed, and calmly placed herself right between the both of them. Courage indeed; no sacred flame, and no training in arms, but she didn't think one ill thing about confronting the two of them. Whether that was because she knew they wouldn't hurt her—and the Knight King would admit that this fact did fully extend to the Devil too—or because if they _did_ manage to accidentally mar her skin the Eighth King might actually maim the both of them. If they were lucky. The High Advisor and the Witch had much worse than that up their sleeves.

"Maybe I should rephrase." And she gave the both of them a look that the Knight King was unable to really read, except that it looked too sneaky for a Priestess. "I do hope that the two of you are not about to partake in any sort of activity that will have people in the offices down the hall coming to…check on you." She brushed a little hair out of her face. "It's a beautiful day and it's been pretty relaxed around the whole district, so it would be a shame to agitate the higher ups."

Knight and Devil shared a look.

Such wisdom. He expected no less. The High Advisor did have some frighteningly good ears, and the Devil's abilities, by nature, ran pretty loud.

She was another person with an almost impossibly big heart. Never mind himself, to extend her consideration to the wellbeing of a _Devil_ seemed counter to a Priestess' nature, and yet she continued heedless. It was impressive; misguided, but impressive.

The Knight King and the Devil regarded each other for a moment more, minding change in stance, change in breathing, for any of the hairline adjustments that would trigger a mutual attack, before the Devil humphed and turned his head away. Bared his throat. His sharp teeth were still set and exposed, but it would be most dishonorable for the Knight King to attack him now when he had his gaze willingly diverted. He returned Excalibur's scabbard to its holster.

"Whatever. I have cleaning to do anyways." And the Devil returned to his duty with even more vigor, back now turned fully to the Knight King.

"I suppose the wisest use of time is to finish my quest and then go on patrol." He picked his sack back up. He was almost done regardless, and he rather liked patrol. Despite the Witch's protests, their roof was relatively free of dragons and griffons. Notwithstanding the efforts of their Artificer, who liked to coddle and even feed such beasts.

The Devil muttered some foul incantation at him under his breath as he walked past, which manage to do nothing to him at all. Of course. He bowed politely to the lady of the court as he left, and was determined to pay the Devil not one more thought until he had to.

Never mind the various receptacles for scrolls dotted around the castle, this next stop was possibly the most hazardous, in an accidentally-lost-an-arm kind of way.

Their Wizard was _weird._ He supposed all wizards were weird, but theirs was a special brand. Also outrageously tall, putting his head in the clouds in more than one way (in the castle, only the Eighth King was taller, but only just). Most of the words that came out of his mouth were the most complex manner of incantations and pieces of spells that the knight King had ever heard, and he wasted not a single part of his brain trying to decipher it. That level of arcane knowledge was not meant for knights. The High Advisor and, occasionally, the Eighth King could follow the meanings of the invocations, but only their Artificer and the Fifth Princess (when she visited and deigned to listen) could make true sense of it and them turn it into something fantastic.

All that to say that his space was cluttered with a wide variety of strange spell components, bizarre alchemical reagents, and other things that would probably kill a person dead if they made skin contact, were inhaled, or otherwise ingested.

And old scrolls. Floor to ceiling, scrolls everywhere. The Knight King was afraid he'd need four or five more sacks, just for what was in here. And it easily got like this every half a fortnight. Just a nest of dangerous arcana.

The Knight King found him firmly entrenched in his work, hunched over a small flame and boiling some manner of purple, swirling liquid that smelled pungent enough to sting the Knight's eyes. The Wizard looked up from his work as he entered, giving him a crooked smile.

"I can guess why you're here. Hinawa doesn't play with chores." He looked the Knight King up and down. He didn't like it; he had no idea what the Wizard could see with his eldritch sight, but it always made him feel like he was pulling out secrets of his being while he did so. "I hope you brought more bags."

The Knight did not feel like playing any games today. He held the open bag out.

"You will fit them all into this one." It wasn't a suggestion.

The Wizard's grin got broader, entirely unphased by the Knight's tone. He rested his hand on his chin, drumming on his jaw with one long finger.

"Oh, it must suck to be you today."

In the end, it took six (_six!_) more sacks to collect all the scrolls inside the Wizard's lair, each scribbled with all manner of unfinished words of power that could _definitely_ be used by spies to break the Eighth Kingdom's wards. Still, the more he collected the angrier he got. Stupid wizards and their stupid _stuff_. His huffing just set the resident Wizard to snickering unrepentantly, which did not improve his mood one bit.

He stomped his way back out, dragging all the sacks behind him. They weren't heavy, especially considering the brutal training held by the High Advisor every day, just…irritating.

The last area to check was in a place, and with a person, he liked substantially more.

The Knight held the castle's Artificer in very high esteem. A forger of weapons and armor without peer, they would need a whole guild's worth of lesser blacksmiths to rival his skill. And they would probably still fall short. Even blessed Ogun, who could pull weapons made of his own soulfire to cleave his enemies apart, still only made temporary armaments; as the Devil's burning feet needed rest, and the Knight could not wield Excalibur's holy flame endlessly, Ogun's fiery weapons needed to be recalled eventually.

The Artificer's weapons were forever.

Or until he destroyed them to make superior ones.

Which was often.

As such, there was always something amazing being created down inside his forge. Whether it was more of his animals or equipment for the castle—and these were not always separate things—new stuff came out of his workshop on a daily basis. The Knight could never tell if he was driven by purpose, or simply bored, because his productivity never wavered.

Also, watching him beat a sheet of metal with a massive hammer while wearing that horned, beastly skull on his head was just awe-inspiring. Sparks and flames everywhere, and all without any resistance to fire at all.

If the stars aligned just right, maybe Ogun could be convinced to join their Artificer at the forge for a few hours. The arms that would come out of there would be _legendary._

The Knight left all of his sacks save the lightest one at the door. The Artificer had a short temper in regards to tampering with his den, and despite a lack of weapons training, he had a fiercely good throwing arm. Not much in the name of scrolls came out of here. Like the rest of the Artificer's creations, they were either kept close and saved for later, or returned to ash inside the forge. Still, with the High Advisor overseeing this quest, it paid to be thorough.

Turns out, the Knight was not the only visitor down here.

Upon entering and picking his way through the labyrinth of wonders, he could see that the Shapeshifter from the First Kingdom was here, too. Everyone that came from the grand castle of the First was a holy member of the Temple, their mighty King included (and no amount of reaching for Nirvana could erase the memory of having the First King block Excalibur's blade with his bare hands with no effort whatsoever). This included the their Shapeshifter, who while not as refined or focused at the Priestess, nevertheless had received the training in performing the holy combat rites. She was currently the Eighth Kingdom's Shapeshifter, a werehellcat (holy hellcat? Holycat? _Heaven_cat, there we go) with a resistance to flames that put everyone else in the Eighth Kingdom to shame. Given what he had seen of the other members of the First Castle, she could be frighteningly fierce.

Too bad she was afflicted with some sort of terrible curse that struck her clothing with such fright that it fled her body at any perceived opportunity. Only a few people seemed to be completely immune to its immediate effect (both the Eighth King and High Advisor sometimes caught the aftermath, but were never struck by the curse itself). The Knight had suffered his fair share of indignity because of it, but the evil in the curse seemed to reach for greater evil; the Devil was the first and most common target when within range, the curse's poor werecat host obviously not included.

For now, everything seemed normal. They were exchanging words and the Artificer handed her a set of palm-sized orbs. Some manner of bomb? Given that he could understand the arcane languages spoken by the Wizard, it could be something alchemical in nature. None of his business, in any event.

He was quite correct in that there was not much for him to collect here.

The Knight was greeted by the Artificer's assistant, a potent sorceress in her own right—who had also done a brief stint as an enemy, until the Artificer and the Eighth King took it upon themselves to rectify the issue while inside the Nether. And considering that the Artificer was as vicious in protecting his family as he was in his lair, and the Eighth King had come out of that whole confrontation almost uncharacteristically angry, it must have been a hell of a fight. The Knight was sorry that he'd missed it; the Eighth King never sparred with them (although there were rumors that he had traded blows with the High Advisor and the Witch prior to the Knight or the Devil's arrival), but he could only imagine the damage those fists could do, barring access to a pile bunker or a mace.

The sorceress assured him they had nothing; lots of metal scrap that would be made into something else, but paper tended to feed the flames as much for fun as for efficiency. He bid her a good day and made about his way.

The Knight sighed. Knight _King_. He didn't forget. His task was done, other than seeing these sacks outside for proper disposal. That would be a satisfying report to give later, now that his quest objective was completed. Chest puffed out and with all the aplomb he could muster, the Knight King dragged his quest items outside to turn in.

* * *

Akitaru looked up from his coffee just in time to watch Arthur prance down the hallway, dragging what must have been at least half a dozen laden trash bags behind him. It was either a prance or a very pompous march, chest puffed out and head thrown back and very, very proud of himself. For what, nobody new. But at least he seemed to be taking his chore list seriously.

Just about as seriously as Arthur could take anything.

Like… when his rookies got serious they became a brutal force to be reckoned with, but that was, _maybe,_ only about one percent of their total uptime. The other ninety-nine percent was spent doing… whatever sort of behavior prompted things like this. It was almost bizarre enough to make Akitaru get up out of his chair to stare down the hallway after him. Almost. He'd seen much worse, though. At this point, he'd have to smell burning or hear screaming in order to think something was truly amiss. Even if that suddenly became the case, Hinawa would probably be on it much quicker—and more effectively—than he would. He was good like that.

Speaking of, his lieutenant hardly spared a glance as Arthur traipsed down the hall with his haul. A quick look over his shoulder, and that was it. Akitaru set down his coffee; even if it wasn't alarming enough to investigate further, he figured it at least warranted mentioning.

"I don't know what you did to make Arthur enjoy taking the trash out, but good job."

Hinawa spared him only the barest look over the rims of his glasses before returning his attention to the stapled file in his hand. He was in that kind of mood, then, hellbent on ignoring all the rest of the nonsense going on around him, out of possible fear of losing his sanity. Akitaru grinned. He'd be fine; if he was ever going to crack, it would have long-since happened.

"I didn't do anything."

They were playing this game now, were they?

"Okay, what did you _say_ to him, then?" Because that was the kind of semantic argument Hinawa would have when he felt like denying something.

Hinawa thumbed over to a new page.

"I didn't say anything particular to him, either." Another page. Given the speed, if Akitaru couldn't see his eyes moving, he would have thought he was pretending to read at all. "This is Arthur. There's a reason I gave Company 2 a dossier on how to handle him during our Nether ops with them."

"Touché." And a point for Hinawa. The speed at which Arthur could turn the mundane into the fantastical bordered on a magic trick.

The lieutenant picked up his coffee without looking.

"However, I am about to amend his chore list, now that he is done with that one. I doubt he will have remembered the rest of the original list, regardless."

"Oh?" Even though none of it was directed at him in any way, the way Hinawa said it made some of the hairs on Akitaru's arms stand on end. That almost imperceptible, lilting undercurrent of "you have slightly annoyed me, so I am going to deign to slightly punish you for it."

So when Arthur strolled back through the cathedral, popped his head into the room and greeted Hinawa with a, "good sir, I have disposed of this castle's scrolls and other detritus," which made Akitaru take a hard, burning swallow of his coffee so that he wouldn't laugh instead, he was entirely unsurprised when Hinawa flipped to another page of his report and responded with a nonchalant, "good. Now help Shinra mop the cathedral. Starting with that hallway."

Arthur balked a little.

"But that is the Devil's chore."

_Someone_ was feeling confident today. Akitaru almost felt sorry for him, but everyone knew not to step in the beartrap, even if it hadn't grabbed anyone in some amount of time. And poor Arthur was just about to plant his foot right in it. He took another mouthful of coffee at Hinawa's slow, deliberate turn to give Arthur his full attention.

"I never intended him to do the whole thing by himself."

Trap set.

"The Devil is clever and quick. He can handle something menial like that."

Foot down…

"And you just 'handled' dragging several bags of trash down this otherwise unsoiled hallway. And now you are going to clean up after yourself. With a mop." And even without a clear view of Hinawa's face, he knew exactly the hard, knife-edged look that was probably lurking behind his bangs. "Unless you would like a repeat of when you two scrubbed all the floors with _no_ mops…"

And there were the teeth.

Arthur's back straightened immediately, and he bolted down the hall. Presumably to steal a mop from Shinra.

Hinawa turned back to the table and his coffee and his reading without even the slightest hint that anything had happened. Akitaru grinned into his own cup.

"You're awful."

Hinawa shot him another, much more deliberate look through his bangs.

"But our trash has been taken out, and our floors will soon be cleaned."

"…Well played." And point two for Hinawa. Akitaru knew when to fold.

Kinda.

"'Scrolls,' though? That's a new one…"

* * *

**AN:**

**Because the fact that nobody else has bothered to use Arthur to write a Not Quite fantasy AU makes me cripplingly sad. So I just did it.**

**You know that if you got this kid to sit at a table and roll some dice, he'd be the best tabletop gamer there ever was. Also the worst, simultaneously. XD**

**Writing Shinra and Arthur's dynamic is frickin' hard, mostly because my brain cannot bend in the ways required to have some of their stupid arguments.**

**I'm exhausted and it is late at night and I'm sure there be typos everywhere, but I gotta hit the hay. I'll sift through my nonsense later.**


	4. Chapter 4 - Pay Up

Despite the starkly different management styles that did not always play nice together, Ōbi and Hinawa had long since acknowledged that the other not only brought something to the table that they were—sometimes sorely—lacking, but that their rookies needed, often desperately.

Even when it caused him headaches and a higher blood pressure than was healthy, Takehisa appreciated Ōbi's soft heart. He was open, and personable, and that held a more powerful sway than Takehisa originally put stock in, even taking soldier morale into account (which he did; he took everything into account, just clearly not always in the correct amounts).

Because sometimes Shinra and Arthur could not even pretend to get along when within thirty damned meters of each other, even when Takehisa sent them very pointed glares over his shoulder that promised a couple grueling hours of "retraining," and Ōbi would just huff, grab the both of them by the scruffs of their necks, and start walking. All Takehisa would get was a, "be back in forty-five!" as the captain dragged their problem children out the door with him. At least he knew where the three of them were going. And no later than fifty-five minutes afterwards (because Ōbi liked to take the leisurely way back from his favorite ramen stop) the three of them would return, with Ōbi's arms over both their shoulders and with such a blissful lack of arguing that Takehisa stopped questioning the methods, and just enjoyed the ensuing quiet.

Because Maki had gained a workout partner with far more expertise than Takehisa himself could provide. He was pretty knowledgeable, but Ōbi absolutely blew him—and everybody else—clean out of the water in that regard, and the results were measurable, namely when he was using her to demonstrate a technique to block and her fist blew right passed his hand to pop him directly in the chin, and sent his glasses spinning across the deck. He barely heard her apologizing profusely, too busy sorting his stunned surprise from the sheer amount of pride that he had to swiftly bundle away to inspect later, because that was usually the technique he could use to stop her when they sparred with each other, when nothing else worked. Ōbi had grinned for almost an hour when he had found out.

Because Iris was quiet and shy, and contrary to popular belief Ōbi could be quiet, too, and they had spent a couple hours putting a few trays of plants into pots up on the roof. Mostly flowers, but a few young vegetable seedlings, with particular care given towards Iris' new tomatoes. She was ecstatic. It was an interesting thing to watch, because any time Ōbi picked up a tool Takehisa felt his gut clench, and he was almost always right to be worried, but when it came to living things the man was always gentle. There were never any accidents. And then he watched as Iris had smothered her laughter in her sleeve as apparently Ōbi managed to cause a massive terracotta pot to disintegrate in his hands by doing almost nothing with it— Takehisa was not shocked in the slightest—and he had looked right at her with a perfect deadpan and said, "well, clearly this one is defective." Takehisa had never heard her laugh that hard before or since.

And he had managed to tame Vulcan's skittishness of fire soldiers with a broad grin and an afternoon in the apparatus bay of pealing music that was nothing but electric guitar, drums and something synthetic that had threatened to scramble Takehisa's nerves something fierce.

And he deliberately never made a big deal out of Tamaki's lucky lecher lure, for which she seemed _exceedingly_ grateful.

He did it all just on instinct, too, very little of it seemed premeditated, and he gave all of them what many had been missing for part—or most—of their lives. Their soft place to fall was here, would always be here, and he made sure they knew it. Once they had realized what he was offering, their youngest three orphans had clung to it with a tenacity bordering on savagery. Yes, even Iris, if that was the only way to possibly justify her determination to get herself all the way to the cathedral of another district, a good hour away, without telling anyone, in the dead of night, to give an enemy captain a verbal what-for. Which would have sent Takehisa into a poignant, confused sort of fury except that it had conveniently moved his plans for a confrontation up a whole week. But that was neither here nor there, because Ōbi had simply made sure she was uninjured, dragged a promise out of her to never do that again, and gave her a warm pat on the head that was the most paternal thing many of these kids had ever experienced. And he doled those out freely, along with all manner of other familial flavors of physical affection. That was beyond Takehisa's particular expertise or inclination, but he was acutely aware of the wonders it worked on the spirits of his crew.

And no, he did not know where that "World's #1 Dad" mug had come from, but he had a rabidly dwindling theory of how it had found its way into the cupboard. Ōbi stubbornly did not touch it for a good two weeks out of denial, until "just this one time, and because it's huge! I can pour a quarter of the entire coffee pot in here," and he had used it every single day since.

If nothing else, Takehisa figured that Ōbi's warmth balanced his own rigid coldness.

Akitaru, however, had long since come to appreciate the windfall he'd been given when he and Hinawa crossed paths. Sure, they sometimes ruffled each other's feathers—which he would admit was probably more true for Hinawa than for him, as the amount of things that rankled the lieutenant's nerved numbered higher than what grated Akitaru's—but he was far more pleased than not with the dynamic.

Even if his ability to frighten compliance into their crew was a _bit_ much.

It was still better than when he would shoot them into compliance.

They were working on that.

Even in light of all that, Akitaru was still well aware that Hinawa gave his recruits what some of them had lacked for a lot of their life: steady, predictable, _constructive_ discipline. Despite his razor-edged tongue, Hinawa wasn't mean spirited, quite the opposite. He didn't just worry about them; he planned for it, planned around it, planned for as many scenarios as he could fathom, and tried to compensate for the rare few he couldn't. Hinawa's concern directly correlated to how short their leashes got. Because over his dead body would he lose one of them, and if he had to tighten the muzzles and bring them to heel for them to survive, then so be it.

Regardless, his firm grip did their rookies more good than not. This was far and away the most noticeable in Shinra and Arthur, who had gone through what Akitaru figured was a long list of authoritarians in their lives, but only the rare few who decided to invest quite so much work in them. And it was clear that putting the polish on their probies was Hinawa's personal investment. He spent hours writing individualized lesson plans, because of course he did, and he probably had each one memorized, because he could change tacks on a dime and not miss a beat. And despite the flinching to his face and quiet, exhausted sighs behind his back, both Shinra and Arthur rose to the occasion. At a damned-near exponential rate, too. His drills were harsh, but fair, in that the target didn't move. He made sure they were taught _once_ what he was looking for, and they pushed to meet it. They didn't always succeed, but the metric they were measured against never changed without him telling them in advance, typically when he changed his lesson plans for the week to match their growth. The army must have hated to lose this one from their cadre.

Maki was an excellent example of what prolonged exposure to Hinawa's training could do for a person who was strong-willed enough to survive it. No amount of verbal abrasion could put a damper on that marshmallow heart, but she had long since learned how to parse his blunt demeanor from what he was otherwise trying to teach, and oh boy was it effective. Mixed with her iron determination, the result was exceedingly lethal; definitely a student of Hinawa's combat style, her technique was geared towards maximum effectiveness at maximum efficiency, and did what he expected any army-vetted technique to do: remove an opponent from play as quickly and completely as possible. It meant that watching them spar together was amazing. Which _also_ meant that he was somewhat sorry that he missed them cleaning house during the raid on Company 5, because that must have been a damned _spectacle_. This had been reinforced during the "party" afterwards when Hibana had huffed into her wine glass with a disappointed, "and then your stone-faced attack dog and his favorite puppy ate my soldiers alive in my own courtyard. You're all animals, I swear." Except for Iris and Shinra, apparently. He ignored the backhanded insult, and took the Princess-Flavored compliment for what it was.

And he did love getting compliments on his crew's behalf, which was mostly all Hinawa's work, too. One call saw them on scene with one of Akitaru's old peers, an academy buddy and longtime crewmate, and they'd kept in touch since their mutual promotions sent them to different houses. After the Infernal from the initial call had been dispatched, he had a few moments to talk. Of course, most of it veered towards work. The firefighter captain made a gesture towards the rest of Akitaru's crew.

"And here I was wondering how you were gonna find it in you to discipline a house full of armed soldiers, and you take the easy route."

Akitaru shrugged, grinning.

"I think you mean the efficient route. Having somebody else to do it for me is the best."

His friend snorted, rolled his eyes, but nodded towards Hinawa all the same.

"That's pretty amazing though. He just whistles and gestures and something gets demolished. And in almost choreographed tandem, too." He grunted and waved his hand broadly in their general direction. "I mean, just look at that. There's no words being said here, just snapping and finger pointing." He gave Akitaru a look. "I'm way over here, haven't yet made eye contact, and he has no idea who I am, but I'm already a little afraid of him."

Because most of the time Hinawa didn't even have to crack the whip; just the knowledge that it was there, _somewhere_, was enough. That, and because the kids did good work, and were rightfully proud of it.

"Yeah, it's actually frightening what he can get them to do. And he only has to bark orders at them _once_. If my staff was bigger, I'd be just a couple steps from a conquering warlord, just from the soldiers he'd train for me."

The other captain gave him a rough, friendly punch to the shoulder.

"Except that you have the battle-hardened edges of a wool blanket. The warlord of a kindergarten, perhaps."

Akitaru gave him a gentle shove back.

"You have no idea. Far more than half my crew are still teenagers. It's just like this," and he gestured to the highly efficient mop-up job Hinawa had them doing, "and then we go home, and it turns into advanced childrearing in the span of minutes. They'll fight fifteen-foot tall Infernals without any hesitation, go face first into an IDLH environment to save someone, and then I'll hear bloodcurdling screams from the shower room when there's a spider in there."

"I mean this with all seriousness, no joke in it at all: this sounds like the perfect job for you."

"I know, right? Why didn't I switch sooner?" He was serious, too. Even when he had to rescue his mighty soldiers from errant bugs—_normal_, regular bugs that did bug things, not the White Clad kind—these were the best days of his life.

And the only reason he had it so easy was because his horrifically intelligent lieutenant spent a lot of time polishing off the rough spots. Hinawa liked to give Akitaru the credit of simply not recruiting anyone weak, but he was sure it was because the former soldier wasn't really looking to break anyone.

_Mostly_.

It wouldn't be long before Akitaru was forced to choke on a little enlightenment, because, _of course_, his two most potent kids could barely stand each other, even over stupid stuff, and occasionally it boiled over. He wasn't sure what, or how, but one afternoon there was a heavy thud that shook the walls of the base, followed by something crashing to the floor.

There was _a lot_ of highly suspicious, deep silence immediately thereafter.

Akitaru was going to get up and check to make sure nobody was injured, but Hinawa sighed, adjusted his glasses, and was down the hall before he could do much more than stand up from his chair. Never mind. It couldn't possibly be anything that required both COs to fix it. There was almost a long enough silence for him to forget that there was anything happening at all, before the sound of a lot of boots echoed up the hall towards the stairs. A mass exodus towards the roof.

Well. Oops.

He made a fierce effort to block everything out and just focus on the paperwork in front of him; he had never directly interfered with Hinawa's style of enforcement, and it would not be happening today as long as it looked like everyone was going to walk away from it. Or crawl away; that had happened once, during one of his more… _aggressive_ cures for unprofessionalism.

And then Maki did an Almost March into Akitaru's open office door, back straight and throwing him a salute before sliding effortlessly into one of her perfect, inspection-ready parade rests, and asked which of his weights he wasn't going to be using for the next two hours; she was going to bring them to Lt. Hinawa up on the roof.

Oh dear Sol, what had happened?

He gestured to a couple bars and several plates bracketed neatly behind the pull-up structure, before sliding his paperwork to the side and propping his chin on his hand.

"Is this something I should know about?"

She paid him only partial attention, too busy picking out the plates she was going to take, before apparently deciding against that and just starting to gather all of them.

"Probably, sir. When he is done with us, I'm sure the lieutenant will give you a detailed report about it."

That wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"…Can you give me the short version?"

She sighed, straightened, and fell back into her parade rest. Really, now…

"Shinra and Arthur had an argument, got ahead of themselves, and snapped a table in the mess hall in half."

Okay. He expected worse, really. But yes, that was exactly the kind of thing that would stir Hinawa's temper, as it implied a weapon made of fire where no fire should be in the building, bare feet on a table, or both. And Hinawa's ill moods were to be avoided at all costs, hence Maki's current very good defensive cover as a Perfect Soldier.

But here in Akitaru's office right now…

"Maki." And her gaze moved from just to the side of his head to actually meet his eyes. "Breathe, and relax." She didn't budge a centimeter. "I'll let you know if I hear him stalking down the hall."

It took a couple moments, as if she thought she was being tested, but soon she let her posture slouch, arms falling down by her sides, and letting out a groan that carried the weight of a great deal of apprehension. Now he was getting somewhere, but he wasn't sure he was going to like it.

"We had a name for this, sir. Back in the army. Our entire squad was wary of it, and even other sergeants in our platoon steered clear when he was in a mood." She rubbed at her neck; it was barely even eleven o'clock, and she already looked exhausted. "Sergeant Hell is back, and I had hoped to never see him ever again for the rest of my life."

What.

She had to be overreacting.

"Sergeant– … I mean, he can't be that much madder than any other time, can he?"

"Have we ever broken a perfectly good table in half doing stupid things, sir?"

"No, touché, but his edge is nothing new. Now it's just a little more acute."

"I am mentally preparing to sleep outside this evening, as we may be too tired to even crawl back down the stairs to bed. Please tell Iris, Vulcan and Licht that I said 'good night.'"

_What_.

He scrubbed a hand down his face. That told him several things, none the least of which was exactly who had been frog-marched up the stairs.

"He got Tamaki, too?"

"Everybody present in that room when he walked in is about to become intimately familiar with the tiles on the deck." She shifted her weight, and put her hands on her hips. "You are probably accustomed with it from your academy too, since the fire department has always been paramilitary, but if one member of a group screws up, it's like everybody has screwed up. He used to have our squad in the drill yard until we fainted."

He would admit, that did sound like Hinawa, just turned way up past ten.

"Yikes. But you're stronger now. All of you, really, but you've got a bit of a head start with this. You survived him once, you will again." And he believed it, too. According to the lieutenant himself, Maki had thrived under the pressure.

She clearly did not agree.

"We're all doomed."

Akitaru huffed.

"Well, _I_ think you'll be fine. Really."

He was entirely unprepared for exactly how strongly she felt about this.

Maki fished a hand into her pocket, pull out her wallet, and slid a bill across his desk to him that had enough zeros on it to make Akitaru's back straighten. And made him a bit uncomfortable.

"Before the day is done, you are going to hear him say the words, 'sometimes you have to break a soldier so you can build what you want over the mistakes,' and when you do, I want you to keep us in your prayers. I'll bet you anything." She made an uncomfortable sound as she eyed the weights. "And with that, I am going to get these weights to him before he comes looking for me, because that will crank the unpleasantness right up to eleven."

He looked from her face, to the money, and back to her face. She was not intimidated.

"You can't be serious." She stared at him and opened her wallet again, and Akitaru held up his hands in partial surrender, if only to get her to put it away. That was the kind of confidence that either made someone much wealthier, or ruined them, and her bet hinged on one very specific thing happening. He did not feel like taking her money at all. "Never mind. Yes, you are. You need a hand carrying all of this?"

She looked very much like she wanted to take him up on the offer, but shook her head anyways.

"I'd better not. He'll be pissed if he knew I came in and bothered you."

"I'm not feeling very bothered…"

She managed nonetheless, not that he ever doubted it, and with two empty bars and a very heavy box of plates began to make her way towards the stairwell.

"Good luck!" He waved after her. She nodded in return.

And then it was just himself, his work, and some very uncomfortable cash alone in his office. He didn't really even want to acknowledge its existence; when he won—and he would, not because he didn't believe her dread, but because he didn't believe Hinawa was ever that brutally punitive just because he could be—he was going to have to find a way to make it come back around to her. How much ramen would it take to pay that back?

The bill just sat there, unhelpful.

"I guess it's a bet, then."

* * *

It would be almost three hours later, when Akitaru got up for coffee, before he would hear anything from the crew outside. He went to the kitchen, partially so that he could see the damage to the table. Hoo boy, yeah, cracked clean in half. No wonder Hinawa was peeved. Upside, Vulcan was already all over the repairs, which looked to be going…"smoothly." For Vulcan, anyways. At least they were probably going to have the single most unique wooden table in any company. He also went because he needed to stretch his legs, and because there were just some days when even his natural state of high energy needed a coffee boost by mid-afternoon. Also because paperwork was mighty dull and sometimes threatened to put him to sleep right on his desk.

The last thing Hinawa needed to see today was him face down on the files he was supposed to be reviewing.

Speaking of, he was not alone in the kitchen for very long. His lieutenant slid through the door not long after he did, looking not too worse for the wear—granted, it wasn't Hinawa he was particularly worried about.

"So. I haven't heard from you since you left my office this morning."

His lieutenant grunted in acknowledgement as he pulled a mug from the cupboard.

"Some of our junior crewmembers decided to engage in some highly unprofessional behavior in the dining hall. They are now putting all that extra energy to good, constructive use."

That was one way to put it, he supposed.

"Maki took quite a few weights with her."

"And everybody is getting well acquainted with them. Thank you for lending your assistance."

Akitaru didn't think that really qualified as "assistance," in this case.

He changed topics slightly.

"I saw the table."

"Hm." Hinawa sipped his coffee. "When?"

"Just now."

"So you also saw what Vulcan did to it?"

"Yes." He grinned into his own cup. "I love it."

"It could use at least seventy percent fewer spikes."

"I love the spikes."

Hinawa shot him a look over the edge of his coffee cup.

"They are impractical on a table."

"They look so metal, though."

The look hardened.

"Don't say that. Don't say that ever again."

"I'm going to have Vulcan redo my desk the same way."

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no?' It's _my_ desk, I want skulls and spikes on it."

"That is not the image we want to project _at all_." Hinawa took another swallow of his coffee. "Sister Iris may never enter your office again if you do."

"I want one big spike right in the middle of my desk."

Hinawa sighed, set down his coffee, and took off his hat to set it on the back of a chair.

"Dare I ask… _why_?"

"So that as I finish paperwork, I can have the cathartic pleasure of impaling it. On the spike."

Hinawa just stared at him like he had grown a second face.

"Absolutely not."

"Upside, if they are impaled on spikes, the files can never be knocked off the desk."

"That is the most backwards, barbaric, _ineffective_ filing system I have ever heard of." Hinawa threw back the last of his coffee, and put his cup in the sink. "We are not doing it."

"Just let me enjoy the idea of my medieval, gothic spike desk, please."

The man sighed.

"At least the idea cannot accidentally gouge someone's hand open." He ran his hand through his hair, put his hat back on, and turned for the door. "If you'll excuse me, I have to make sure they aren't taking any breaks up there."

Akitaru shot a look at the clock on the wall.

"It is almost fourteen hundred hours, I'm pretty sure you've made your displeasure perfectly clear."

Hinawa huffed.

"More important than my displeasure, that is not behavior becoming of any young adult, especially not those enlisted in public service." He adjusted his glasses. "They are going to learn it today, and never forget it."

Well, yikes. Akitaru relaxed into a chair, intent to enjoy the last of his coffee in peace. Maybe spend these next few minutes imagining the stacks of paperwork hanging from spikes. The lieutenant was right, though; the giant holes would make filing forms an absolute pain.

Hinawa paused in the doorway, glancing back over his shoulder.

"Besides—"

And Akitaru had a _terrible_ feeling about where this was going.

"—even though they are all good Fire Soldiers, sometimes you just need them to step up their game."

Oh no.

"It's a little bit like remodeling, but with habits, and conditioning."

_No_.

"In that you have to break what's already there, and build something better on top of it."

And it took every ounce of willpower Akitaru had to not let his head hit the counter until long after Hinawa had left the kitchen and was out of earshot.

Well, guess he'd better pick up that phone.

Because Maki had called it.

* * *

Despite all that, Hinawa still had them back downstairs before fifteen hundred hours. Akitaru heard the whole group shuffle back, the sweaty cluster made up of Tamaki-Shinra-Arthur doing a strange, almost impossible combination of both supporting and dragging each other. And limping. They weren't crawling, yet, but he expected the entire freezer's worth of ice packs to be in use at some point this evening.

Maki came in a short while later, returning all his equipment (which of course, was absolutely pristine, and he could safely guess that Hinawa made them all clean his stuff before returning it). He took everything from her as she entered his office, despite her feeble protests, and stopped her before she could leave his office.

"Congratulations." And he passed her the bill back, plus extra. "I know when I've gotta pay up."

She stared at the bill, and at the matching one with it. She looked genuinely surprised.

"Sir, you didn't have to—"

"Yeah, I did. That's how bets work."

"But I'm the only one who made a bet, you didn't make your own offer, we didn't set exact conditions—"

"Trust me, I didn't expect you to nail down exactly where today was going with such perfect accuracy, but hey. I'm impressed." He grinned. "And look! You're still standing. No fainting or sleeping outside or anything."

She smiled despite herself, which he considered another good sign. It meant she was still in good enough spirits.

"We must have not bottomed-out his pity well as much as I thought. That, or listening to our stomachs growl got on his nerves."

He shot a look at the clock.

"Yeah, you all did skip lunch. Dinner isn't for another few hours, though, I would definitely eat something."

"Urgh, empty stomach or not, I'm not sure I could hold down anything heavy."

"It doesn't have to be heavy. You need to put calories back in, or your body won't have anything to recover with."

"Yeah…"

He wasn't overwhelmed by her enthusiasm, but considering she was exhausted, hungry, possibly dehydrated, itching for a shower, and had limbs like wet noodles, he probably wasn't going to get excited cheering.

Better make the ramp nice and easy, then.

"Tell you what. Shower, change, and there will be a blueberry protein shake in the kitchen with your name on it that you are going to drink at least half of. Deal?"

Maki looked unsure.

"Didn't I already take your money? Don't worry about the shake."

"Correction: you _won_ my money, you didn't take it. And I will do what I have to if it gets some food back in all of you."

The sentiment was much appreciated, at the very least, and she nodded.

"Thank you, sir. Deal."

He gave her a pat to the shoulder, spun her around, and pushed her out the door.

"Off you go. And where is everybody else? Anybody who's been up on the roof gets a protein shake, Captain's orders."

He found them in a semi-state of collapse in the hallway outside the dining room where the ill-fated Table Incident (as it would be known as henceforth) took place, as they could admire Vulcan's handiwork from the floor there as well as anywhere else. He recruited Sister Iris to usher Tamaki off to the showers with Maki, and dragged Shinra and Arthur to the kitchen. Almost literally. He could at least start by putting calories back in these two.

There were only enough blueberries for one batch though, and he made sure those were spoken for.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Sooo... this what not at all what I was anticipating chapter four to be. I was all geared up to give Tamaki some screen time, but dear sweet Primus she is hard to write. Just about busted my head on my keyboard before I gave up and changed tactics. I promise I will get back to you, Tamaki. T^T**

**I have not been productive at all during the lockdown. I still have to go to work (I'm an EMT at a zoo, my shifts largely haven't budged), so one would think my inspiration would stay constant.**

**NOPE.**

_**NOT AT ALL.**_

**What have I been doing? Goddamn Animal Crossing, like a maniac. Like, I've barely even been playing WoW, I've spent hours catching bugs and fish to pay off my home loans. Thanks, Nintendo, like I didn't have enough ways to kill my own creativity. XDDD (but also thank you because this game is a dream)**

**May 4th was International Firefighter Day, so making sure this chapter happened seemed highly appropriate. I'm still not entirely satisfied with how it came out, but eh.**

**There are typos _everywhere_, friends, I can feel it.**


	5. Chapter 5 - Place At The Table

Tamaki was accustomed to fighting for her space.

Quietly, so that she wouldn't reap the retribution of peers who didn't understand, but if she wanted something, she was used to grabbing a hold of it and not letting go.

Her home with her parents was her one stronghold where she could relax. Because they didn't question anything she did. They didn't think she had anything other than the best of intentions at heart. Because they didn't think her Lucky Lecher Lure was anything more than the quirk of birth that she had been saddled with, no different than her flames, just a little less… marketable, as an employee. Or as a nun, because she always knew she wanted to be active in the church. And oh boy, did she want it. Her parent's approval made it seem that much more reachable.

But that dream was both the hurdle and the goal.

Because the church was a _super terrible_ place to have a curse that demanded an indecent exhibition of skin.

It had reared its ugly head in middle school, and hadn't let her alone since. At the worst possible times, at _any_ possible time, with strangers, with friends. Classmates were the worst of it. They talked, _a lot_. It didn't take long for stories to circulate through the entire school. "Tamaki was caught flashing again. I heard it was a _teacher_, this time." "No shame at all. Her family must be so _embarrassed_. I feel sorry for them." It followed her like some manner of sucking miasma, cruel whispers always wafting at the very edges of her hearing. She could run from it for a short while—or, more accurately, distance herself away from it—but as soon as any target wandered into range, it lashed out immediately. And it superseded _everything_; her reflexes, her self-control, her very nature, none of it seemed to matter. The curse came first.

With other people, too. It wasn't ever "Tamaki with the good grades," or "Tamaki who's always helpful," or "Tamaki who's always good to her friends." Just "Tamaki who pretends to accidentally fall out of her clothes." Everything good she did, all her hard work, took a back seat to that.

Even her sudden manifestation as a Third Gen had only drawn attention away from her curse very briefly. After all, it hadn't taken long for her detractors to point out that her flames sprouted from her butt.

She felt bad liking them. Her twin tails. Like the ones on her head, they reminded her of a cat.

She found it even harder to not like them when she sprouted actual fire ears, too.

She had hoped that her newfound abilities would burn the curse away, use it as fuel, incinerate it like rubbish. Unfortunately, the two entities ignored each other entirely; her curse, it seemed, was not at all afraid of fire.

She had worked hard to control them—both her flames and her curse, to variable levels of success—alone on the sports field after school, and kept pushing her grades and her devotion to the church until she qualified to take the entrance exams to the Fire Force. She was ecstatic; brigade nuns and priests were just the coolest. Most were stationed at Companies 1 and 6; yes, every house was required by law to have someone ordained to perform last rights before engaging an infernal, but only the First and Sixth Brigades had whole regiments of just clergy. Company 1 was her goal, her dream (no offense meant at all to Company 6 and the miracles that she had heard that came out of there), and even if she had to drag the weight of her curse behind her, she would get there. With her family pushing at her back, it seemed achievable.

It was achievable.

It _was_.

When the sealed, ornate envelope had arrived at her house, her parents had waited for her to come home and open it. She had screeched so loud she was sure her neighbors three blocks over heard it.

She was actually going. There was a probationary period, and she had to clear the physical assessment held by the company officers on the first day, but it was well within her grasp, and she was not going to let go.

Her damned curse almost scuttled the whole thing.

The grounds of Company 1 were even more expansive once she was required to navigate it. Absolutely beautiful, though. She could get lost here, in a good way. It was easy to forget this was a fully functional arm of the Fire Force. Maybe because she hadn't seen its claws yet.

Speaking of getting lost here… the beautiful grounds did contain several sweeping outdoor flights of stairs. Which she tripped down as she was distracted by the grand architecture. She caught air, and all she could think of as she fell was which articles of clothing were going to come flying off on her way to the ground, out in the middle of a large courtyard, in full view of a good couple dozen veteran members of the cathedral. It was terrible enough when it happened in the company of classmates, but this—

"Whoa there!"

She never made it to the bottom. Someone managed to grab firmly onto one of her wrists, halting her fall entirely. The big hand tightened only slightly, hauling her back up to her feet with little effort.

"My stars, that was about to be a painful fall, little miss!"

He was even more intense up close.

Tall, broad-shouldered to match his broad grin, star-shaped pupils to let people know to expect quite a lot of fire out of him. Even his hand on her wrist burned. In a nice way.

Also, he had just put a hard stop on the activation of her curse.

He had _stopped_ her curse.

With his _bare hands_.

She was still fully clothed as she stood there, mouth agape.

"Rekka, what did you just do? Her mouth is open like she's breathing, but I am not sure she's actually breathing."

He also wasn't alone. All three of the Company's lieutenants were here. All of them. They were impressive from afar, and right intimidating close up. Burning hot and frigid cold and a warm medium that still left the distinct impression that they had more than earned their rank.

She really should probably start breathing again now, though.

She managed to hastily smooth her habit, and give a deep, respectful bow.

"T-thank you very much, Lieutenant Rekka! For saving me."

If possible, his grin got broader.

"My stars, my name proceeds me, it seems!"

"It seems." Lieutenant Karim was almost the complete opposite, no smile at all and a voice that could cool a hot day, the serious mirror to Rekka's… everything, apparently. Not that she would ever dare drop even a mote of disrespect anywhere remotely close to any of them, but she got the distinct feeling that if anyone of the lieutenants could get backs to straighten and salutes to fly, it would be him. It was working on her right now, pinned hard under his scrutiny. "Given that I haven't ever seen you here before, I take it you're one of our next batch of recruits?"

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant Karim!" Because, yes, she did enough research to know the names of her would-be superiors, and she wanted to make sure they knew it. She threw a sharp salute.

"Huh." He adjusted his grip on his massive, ornate horn. She had heard rumors about what he did with it, and for an instrument that was basically an oversized, weaponized trombone, it was rather intimidating to be this close to. "I am going to give you two pieces of advice for you to take or leave, and you can take them or leave them as you see fit."

"Yes sir!"

"First, we don't salute here. This is a cathedral. This is _the_ cathedral, bar the one the Emperor resides in."

"Yes sir, sorry sir!" And she immediately pitched her hands into the sign to Sol. Well, _duh_, that made sense. How had she not gotten that? She hoped her ears weren't visibly burning.

"Try not to scare all the new nuns today, Karim." Lieutenant Rekka's smile hadn't fallen an inch. If anything it was set to split his face wide open.

"Hush, Rekka, he's not even being mean." Lieutenant Huo Yan hadn't yet removed his hands from inside his sleeves, fully content to be the calm buffer. "Besides, the sooner she learns it, especially before going in front of Captain Burns, the better it will be for her."

"Better if he puts a starry smile on that scary face of his, though."

Lieutenant Karim's lip twitched, like he was trying very hard to ignore the conversation at his back.

"_Second_," and his tone had cooled further, though she wasn't yet sure how much was because of her or them, "I take it, given the style of your habit, that you are here as a Fire Soldier, and not just clergy?"

"Yes sir!"

"Then your second piece of advice is: make it to the training grounds before we do, or you'll be late, and disqualified for being late."

"Y-yes sir!" She gave another sign to Sol, and bowed again. "Thank you very much for your council!"

"See? Scaring all the nuns!"

"Rekka—"

She didn't stay to hear the rest; it wasn't her business anyhow. She had been given her first assignment, and she wouldn't fail on such a pitiable technicality as simply being late. She began to jog down the path, hoping that she remembered enough of the instructions to get herself there without wasting time getting lost.

From behind her, Lieutenant Rekka was shouting.

"Don't let his scary face chill your enthusiasm! Run like you've got nothing to lose! Run like you've got _everything_ to lose!" Tamaki looked over her shoulder just enough to see him waving spiritedly after her. "You can do it! Show us what you've really got in the tank!"

_Run like you've got everything to lose_. He had no idea at all. She had come this far, and she wasn't going to stop now. Tamaki was used to hanging on and not letting go.

Her jog became a sprint immediately, and she threw all the energy she had, a considerable amount, into her legs. She had always been a good runner, when her curse didn't go and screw it up. She could go fast. She _would_ go fast. Like a cat, if she could, where her feet barely touched the ground.

Cats had the benefit of four legs though, and tails for balance.

She had tails. Two of them, even.

Her blood boiled and sang, and the scenery flew by. She barely had time to register landmarks as she made her turns. Huh, she thought the training grounds had been further away from the main courtyard of the Cathedral.

It wasn't until she was brushing dirt from her hands, standing in the back row of new recruits, that she realized she had run there on her hands and her feet. That sure explained the stares.

It actually took a few more minutes for the lieutenants to arrive, and Rekka smiled right at her the minute he rounded the corner. She was prepared to sink right into the pavement in embarrassment.

"_Yeah_! My stars, that's what I'm talking about! Left a nice trail of smoke for us to follow, too! That's the spirit!" She didn't think that grin ever left his face. "I sure hope all the rest of you have that kind of oomph in you, too!"

Praise was the last thing she thought she would get for that stunt. It wouldn't be the last time, either. Lieutenant Rekka was quite open with what he thought about her fiery cat tails, and Lieutenant Huo Yan was always gently encouraging regarding her… unique… combat style. Lieutenant Karim was… blunt, but he never had any particular disdain about how she used her ignition ability.

And, to her immense surprise, her curse was almost a non-issue for them. It still showed up, of course, which led to the usual whispers from her peers, but the first time it reared its head in front of them, fully, she got help from who she thought was the least likely person.

Because of course it would show up right at the beginning of mass. She had nothing to trip on but the immaculately smooth carpet in the isles between the pews. Which meant that was exactly what she tripped on. Almost everything below her habit simply fell away, in front of the eyes of not only the other rookie soldiers, but all three lieutenants. Thank Sol for small mercies, Captain Burns was far enough ahead, with his back to them, so as to not see her embarrassment.

The sneers started almost immediately. She had hoped people here were less willing to be so loudly vulgar about it, but, if anything, it was like it had gotten _worse_ with age. She apologized to nobody in particular, and tried to both cover herself and feel around for the rest of her habit. To protect herself from the stares. And the… sudden cold?

The jeering crowd didn't seem to notice.

"In case you didn't know, Tamaki, the chapel is a terrible place to have your tits out."

"In case _you_ didn't notice, _rookie_, the chapel is a terrible place to have your complete lack of respect for another's modesty out."

The sudden, deafening silence ran down the pews hand in hand with the deepening cold. It hadn't been this freezing when she'd entered, had it? She could quite literally see her breath in the air. Which meant the one person capable of _lowering_ the temperature with an ignition ability was very, very pissed. She raised her eyes from the floor, she was at least brave enough to take the disappointment from her superiors head on, only to find the icy barb was not aimed anywhere near her direction. Lieutenant Karim had several rookies all pinned under his stare, and not a one of them happened to be her.

"Watch your mouth. We won't tolerate your vulgarity in here."

"But Tamaki—"

"_Fire Soldier_ Kotatsu tripped and fell, and your response, in that uniform, as both crewmember and clergy, was grossly inappropriate." The hard, serious edge to his voice was quite sharp now, like broken glass. Or ice. She shivered, and not all of it was from the cold. He had one of her classmates trapped hard under a glare, and oh boy was she glad it wasn't her. "You are standing in a cathedral of Company 1. We take only the best here, and we expect only _your_ best in return. Is this behavior your best, Fire Soldier?"

Her classmate fumbled through a clumsy sign to Sol, and an almost sloppier bow.

"N-no, sir." He managed to cast a look back at her, pure unbridled disgust, like it was her fault he was getting raked over the coals. Or whatever the frozen analogy to coals were. "Nor was it hers."

Lieutenant Karim let out a noise almost like a hiss. Behind him, Huo Yan sighed, and the sound of Rekka loudly clapping a palm to his face reverberated through the halls.

"Oh dear."

"Rookies better buckle up!"

Captain Burns appeared to be ignoring them. _Appeared_.

Lieutenant Karim was actually ignoring them, turning to give the congregation of rookies his full attention. Tamaki was sure she saw a collective flinch.

"The only behavior you can ever have absolute control over is your _own_." He jabbed a finger at the immediate subject of his irritation, but let his eyes flicker quickly over the group. "You are responsible for you. However, how you behave around others not only reflects back onto you, but also reflects on your company, the Fire Force in general, and hence the Empire, with you as its representative. If this is how you act with your crewmembers, the people who fight back the flames with you, how can we expect you to act with civilians? You are now a first responder. You show up when someone is having their worst day imaginable, and you try your hardest to make it not their worst day imaginable. You will see people at their most vulnerable. Is this the behavior we should expect of you around the vulnerable?"

"No sir!"

Up by the altar, Captain Burns turned his head just enough to glance over the crowd, which produced quite a few more rushed, skittish "no sirs" from the congregation. If Karim noticed, he didn't show it.

"If this is your nature when someone is vulnerable, then we invite you to excuse yourself. We have no use for you. But here, in the ranks of Company 1, we expect you to act with the dignity of both a member of the Temple of Sol, and the Fire Force. If this is too much a burden for anyone here to handle, get out. To those here who _don't_ find this task to be too difficult of a task to do, I believe your fellow crewmember could use a hand."

There was a moment of unfocused, fumbling shifting in the crowd, not sure who was going to rise to the occasion, before two of the newer Sisters pushed the rest of Tamaki's habit into her hands, helping her into it. Tamaki herself was still somewhat stunned. It was such a different reaction than what she had spent her life hearing from her teachers or councilors, she wasn't quite sure what to think. None of them had ever bothered to speak on her behalf so publically.

And while it didn't completely stop the whispers, it was nice to know that her superiors had her back, even when the curse up and went wild nearby. Because Huo Yan was patient and Karim would sternly brush it off and Rekka could still just stop it in its tracks. Like it was nothing at all. He would just step in and…

She had no idea that another person could be the cure to her curse, but so it was. He was loud and awkward but he went face-first into everything without flinching. She admired it. She more than admired it. Whether it was her curse, or Infernals, or whispering peers, or a plateau in her training, everything just got better when he was around.

Right up until everything got substantially worse because he was around.

She had never had a day go from such a high—she had been individually hand-picked to help Rekka with a personal project to inoculate children against infernalization; this was even better than being one of those selected to represent the First at the Rookie Games—to such a crippling low, because who knew that she was just feeding live humans, the most vulnerable of live humans, right into the fiery maw of a madman. And his creepy death-cult. The betrayal was a gut-punch, both literally and figuratively. By the time Kusakabe had shown up, she had never more wanted someone to kick the teeth in of someone she admired, which was an awful, slimy, terrifying feeling to have. He had to be stopped, and they would have to beat him unconscious to halt him. At least if they could catch him, she could eventually know why.

At least, that had been the case, until his own creepy death-cult allies _shot his heart out_.

Her emotions could not keep up. From adoration to disgust to horror. She wanted Rekka to get the thorough ass-kicking he deserved. Not dead. The betrayal of her admiration was still too raw for that. It felt like her whole soul was raw. It was all just too much.

"There was nothing more you could have done." Lieutenant Karim had met her outside the infirmary, once she was given a clean bill of health. Physically, of course; mentally, she was far from fine. He walked her back to her quarters, simultaneously her chaperone and her armed warden; she was well-warned about how the investigation could go. "We've… Huo Yan and I knew Rekka for a long time. Long before you got here. The asshole was probably an asshole before you knew he was an asshole." The look he gave her was unreadable. "You are responsible for you. You are _not_ responsible for him." The rest of the trip was quiet; he was trying to help, she knew, but it was all much too fresh to ease her yet.

And then they had shunted her off to Company 8 within twenty-four hours. Tamaki wasn't so out of it that she didn't realize that they were probably doing to protect her from the investigation as much as possible, even though they called it a "suspension."

After all, a real suspension of duty would have had her removed from operating as a Fire Soldier, period.

She wasn't ready. _At all_. Investigation or not, the move was a lot to take in. She didn't have anything against the residents of the Eighth personally—Kusakabe was a unique case, as he seemed to trigger her curse more than usual, and would just grin through it and dear Sol, she almost wanted to just punch him, but he had also been the one to bury Rekka's stupid, lying face in the ground, so that was complicated—but she wasn't prepared for the shake-up. Captain Burns and Lieutenant Karim had both seen her off in person, which made it a bit easier; more like being dispatched on a solo mission than put where an internal investigation would have more difficulty getting to her directly. Tamaki appreciated the effort, she really did.

Moving from the lodgings of the First to the… "well used" accommodations of the Eighth was jarring, but she would manage. At the very least, the small-size of the crew and the comparatively large size of the space they inhabited gave her plenty of space to get away, when she needed it, which let her rein her curse in slightly.

Bonus, she could also grieve in private.

The downside to that same small crew was that her absence was quite easy to notice; she became aware that escape was harder once she realized that they tended towards community meals, especially breakfast and dinner. She was used to eating alone in Company 1's massive mess hall. It was a habit born of security, as her curse needed targets to latch onto. It never appeared when it was just her, and there appeared to be a limit in range that it was willing to drag her around.

The dining room and kitchen of Company 8 felt incredibly homey and… _warm_ in comparison. Like she was staying in a family's house.

It also made escape impossible.

Even after Kusakabe made it clear that she was more than allowed to sit at the table with the rest of them—more than allowed, _asked_ to sit with them, like he wasn't perturbed by her Lucky Lecher Lure at all—it still made her uncomfortable. She wasn't used to sharing close space with anyone but her parents and maybe a close friend or two. Company 8 just rubbed shoulders like they had all grown up together, the weirdos. It was a bit much to deal with.

It was nice to watch from afar, though.

It was nice, and she shouldn't ruin it.

Kusakabe's invitation still stood, she assumed. She left it well alone. She was the outsider here, anyhow.

Unfortunately, Kusakabe was not the only one weird about eating at the table.

When she wasn't in the office or finding some place in the station to hide, Tamaki liked to spend time near the kitchen. It always had an underlying smell of fresh coffee, but depending on the time of day, it could also smell like tea, the occasional pastries that Sister Iris made when she felt bored, and whatever was last made for dinner. It reminded her of home.

Of course, spending time near the kitchen also taught her that there was a clear pecking order _in_ the kitchen. Which is also how she learned why nobody ever, ever seemed to think twice about that frilly pink apron that Lieutenant Hinawa wore. He was strict, to the point, had the sense of humor of a running chainsaw, a stare that could freeze solid the blood in a person's heart, and eyes that saw everything.

There was a distinct sort of irony in that he made Lieutenant Karim feel warm in comparison.

But this was Company 8. She should have known there'd be more to it than that.

Her habit of trying to avoid contact with almost everyone had not gone entirely unnoticed. Eyes that saw everything, you know.

She had gotten roped in to his dinner shift, most likely due to being already in the kitchen when he decided to start cooking, and had not gotten out of dodge fast enough to avoid his attention. Hence she was now peeling potatoes at the counter, which was an intimidating task when one was standing in the same room as the best cook in the Company. Who was also a perfectionist, and had a soft, hissing temper that even the captain didn't mess with.

She sighed every time she took a chunk out of a potato as she tried to peel it.

"Is there a problem?" His voice was low and cold and serious, and he was probably irritated by the aforementioned sighing.

"No, sir! I mean…" He was most likely quite sharp in detecting bullshit when it left someone's mouth, given that she had never seen anyone here ever try. She didn't even bother. "I'm sorry. I'm out of practice. I used to help my parents in the kitchen, but we have a huge mess hall at Company 1, so I haven't done any real cooking in a while."

"Hm."

She expected more than that, but at least he was somewhat forgiving of her lack of finesse, despite his dislike of outright ineptitude. He was quiet for a while, before he spoke again. There was less chill in it, this time.

"You can help set the table with Maki and Shinra, if you'd prefer."

She reflexively tightened her grip on the potato, which almost caused it to slip right out of her hand. She would rather take the gamble with her curse with only one other person in the room, if she could, instead of multiple. It tended to be less embarrassing all around.

"No, it's fine. I don't mind doing this." Tamaki realized too late that she might have just missed his polite way of excusing her from mutilating all his potatoes. "U-unless you'd rather me set the table, sir."

"I'm fine. Do what you want." The quiet, again, was only temporary. "Is there a reason you'd rather butcher potatoes than be in the dining room?"

Yes.

"Not in particular." Well, that lie had slipped out faster than she had thought about it. Hopefully it was fast enough to be believable.

"Does it have anything to do with why you are avoiding other people outside the office?"

Apparently it was not. Add it to the list of reasons why Lieutenant Hinawa was the most terrifying person in Company 8: more accurate than a lie detector. And he still hadn't even turned to look at her, yet. Probably; she was certainly staring a hole into this potato, and did not have the courage to look over her shoulder yet.

"I'm aware that you did not ask for a reassignment, and that the specific circumstances of your 'suspension' from Company 1 was uncomfortable, to be polite about it." He continued to move about the kitchen as he spoke. Considering the little that she had already seen, he could do this level of multitasking in his sleep. "Given that you appear fine in the office, I am curious as to why you are hellbent on avoiding other people when outside of it."

"Would you believe I'm an introvert, sir?" Anything to throw him off the trail.

Predictably, it did not work.

"So am I. So is Sister Iris." She could hear the change in voice quality that meant he had turned around, and she now had is full attention. She knew she had been staring at this potato for several minutes now. It yielded no answers, unfortunately. "Gut feelings are not my forte. I string enough observations together to form a possible conclusion. But this feels like… something else. The determination with which you avoid interaction seems above and beyond introversion." If she stared at this potato any harder, it was going to burst into flames. She went back to peeling it, it felt more comfortable than talking. "You're allowed to tell me if I'm missing the mark."

But what if she was too skittish to tell him that he was hitting the nail on the head?

"Not really. It's just…" She hadn't managed to repulse anybody here yet, and would like to keep it that way. Company 8 was super strange, but they seemed to be good people. "It's better if I don't."

"Has your 'Lucky Lecher Lure' attracted unwanted attention?"

She flinched. There it was. She could not get rid of this ball and chain, no matter what. It didn't matter that she was loyal and diligent and competent. Just that she could pop out of her clothes at any given time. Like she meant to be that… perpetually inconvenient.

"Isn't that what it does?" Because that was always the one trait about her people carried with them.

"Fire Soldier Kotatsu." And his tone took on the steel quality of a superior demanding his due attention, and her back straightened accordingly, even if it took a couple more moments to turn around. She almost regretted it; the heart-freezing stare was in full effect. "I must not be making myself very clear. We are Fire Soldiers, and that position holds us to a superior standard of professionalism, despite what my subordinates might lead you to believe with their lark. While I cannot trust them to maintain their own dignity, they do take the Eighth's reputation seriously. Even so, there are lines in the foolishness that cannot be crossed, for any reason. Given your disquiet, I am suspicious. With that in mind, let me rephrase, less delicately." She didn't think that stare could get any scarier, but it sharpened enough to be something wholly different. She swallowed reflexively; never mind her heart, her soul was about to bolt for safety. "Is there somebody here you are avoiding because they are taking advantage of your Lucky Lecher Lure?"

It took a full two minutes for her brain to catch up.

That was… _not_ the direction she expected it to go. Confrontations usually ran the other way—"who are you inconveniencing?" or "who are you distracting"—and here she had been all geared up to protect herself from that again. She could count on one hand the amount of people that actually expressed concern for her wellbeing once they were confronted with her curse. Her parents aside, she figured the higher-ups at Company 1 would be the few to actually do so.

That said… Company 8 was weird, but she hadn't stumbled over anything remotely similar to derision yet. Because Maki was stuck at being stumped to how she could pop out of a fully zipped jumpsuit, and Sister Iris would simply tent her fingers, say a prayer, and retrieve her errant clothing like it wasn't anything particularly extraordinary, Arthur could not be assed to notice anything amiss at all, as if he was unable to even comprehend her states of surprise undress, and Kusakabe…actually took his lumps as her curse's favorite trigger with minimal complaining. One good snarl to match her hiss, and that was it. Like Captain Burns, it didn't register on Captain Ōbi's radar as a problem, just the occasion non-issue issue that popped up once in a while.

And Lieutenant Hinawa was determined to keep it as a non-issue issue, and currently looked like he was willing to go shoot someone into submission if that seemed to no longer be the case.

It looked like she would have to start using two hands, soon. It was a good feeling.

But before that, she should probably divert him off his undue warpath.

"No!" She shook her head vehemently. "Nothing like that. I just…" Gratitude aside, it still wasn't something she was used to talking about with others. "The best defense against it is to stay away from other people as much as possible. Most people don't understand, or want to understand. I don't know if I can deal with any more embarrassment right now, so this… feels like the best option. I think." She realized that she was clutching at the half-peeled potato, but that was in lieu of nervously grabbing at her pigtails. "I'm not trying to be rude, sir."

He regarded her for a few more moments, before whatever signs he watched to sift truth from crap were satisfied enough.

"If that's all it is, then that's fine." He turned his attention back to the rest of the kitchen like nothing of note had happened. "Do what you will, if it makes you more comfortable. You know where we'll be." His hands paused briefly as he was fiddling with a baking sheet. "Forgive my prying."

"That's okay." Please; like she'd ever be against due diligence. He had made more gestures towards looking out for her wellbeing in the last five minutes than many of her teachers had over years. "I appreciate it."

Even if he still scared the hell out of her.

She would appreciate it more later that night, shuffling soundlessly down the hallway back towards the kitchen. The First was pretty strict about food in dorms, but the Eighth just seemed to allow snacks everywhere. To that end, she was going to quietly abscond with some cookies back to her room.

That was the plan, at least, but there was light and two voices filtering out through the half-open kitchen door.

"I made a mistake."

Definitely Lieutenant Hinawa. Given the other deep rumble, it was him and Captain Ōbi. Tamaki didn't dare peek through the door, the lieutenant's eyes were too good. If she thought she wasn't interrupting something important, she may still try for those cookies anyways.

There was a sound of something heavy sliding across the wooden table. A coffee cup, perhaps?

"Well, I distinctly remember when everybody but Arthur headed towards bed, so how frightened should I be that one of our rookies is dead?"

"Don't jest, this one is serious." Even with the captain, Hinawa did not humor much nonsense. "I spoke to Tamaki, even after we agreed that you should do it."

She just managed to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from making any noise in surprise. They must have taken notice a while ago, if she was a topic of conversation. Yikes.

"Oh." Captain Ōbi sounded apprehensive, as much as she could tell through a door and eavesdropping in the hall. "How did it go?"

A soft sigh, and something that sounded like drumming a pen against the table.

"Her response was satisfactory, but I think you would have handled it more gently than I did." A pause, presumably for coffee. "I saw an opening, though, and took it."

"Do you regret it?"

"I regret my lack of patience around the issue."

"It's not the kind of thing we should be particularly patient about." There was a sound of creaking wood, and Tamaki could be reasonably sure the captain was leaning back in his chair far enough to bring the front legs off the floor. "I take it, since her response was 'satisfactory,' that you didn't immediately have to go on an inquisition through our ranks?" She almost jumped when the chair legs suddenly slammed back down. "Oh hell, is Arthur really dead?"

"You keep trying to make that joke, and it is not clever. Also, out of all the people on our roster, I believe that Arthur is the single most oblivious on the matter."

No fooling.

"I won't lie, this kind of situation was always the one thing I ever feared having to deal with while in command. I am fortunate to have never dealt with it when I was a firefighter, and I'm glad I won't have to deal with it as a fire soldier."

"Your recruits may be young and dense, but they have their hearts in the right place." She heard the lieutenant sip softly through his coffee. "And Tamaki is resilient, as so far proven."

It was nice to hear. Granted, she shouldn't be hearing _any_ of it, and if Lieutenant Hinawa caught her eavesdropping in the hallway she was sure there would be all kinds of hell to pay. But after everything that had happened through the last few days, the praise felt good.

Captain Ōbi gave a thoughtful hum.

"So she's fine, then."

"I think that 'fine' is a very relative term. Give her time, and I think she'll come around."

"Hm. So we're possibly in this for the long haul, then."

"Internal investigations can take time, so we should prepare for that eventuality."

"Well, then…"

"No." And his tone sharpened severely.

"I haven't said anything yet!"

"I can see your face. That plan is terrible."

"I am worried about her! Quite honestly, I'm worried more about this than the other thing."

The urge to get closer to the door was awfully strong, but the fear of being seen through the gap was more compelling. They were worried about her? _Why_? What was wrong!? Had they heard anything about the investigation? Was she being arrested for kidnapping and accessory to murder!? Tamaki grabbed at her pigtails in anguish. Her parents would disown her if she went to prison.

"We are not child-proofing the house."

Beg pardon, but _what_?

"I'm terrified that when her curse kicks in, she is going to trip and hit her head on a table." Captain Ōbi sighed. "Let me get thicker rugs, at least."

"It is patronizing, and unnecessary." And Lieutenant Hinawa put his coffee cup down on the table harder than strictly necessary. "Tamaki comes from Company 1. Despite our differences, I cannot believe that they train their soldiers much more gently than I do."

"…you _do_ know how high a bar you set, right?"

She hadn't been here long enough to get a full scope of how the lieutenant ran his drills, but she had the unfortunate experience of watching him shoot Arthur in the foot for getting lazy during his workout. She didn't want to know what this "high bar" even looked like. Company 8 was crazy.

Lieutenant Hinawa huffed.

"My initial assessment shows that Tamaki is quite nimble, and usually well-coordinated. Despite appearances, she is also remarkably durable. She may have the single highest heat resistance out of every pyrokinetic in our Company." He was back to idly tapping his pen against the table. "We will not be putting tennis balls on the tables or corners to protect her from herself. She's fine."

Two things. One, Tamaki was going to hold onto the praise for as long as possible. It wasn't the first time she had heard it, but after the string of mistakes that had landed her here right now, it was nice to know that people still thought good things about her. Two… she wasn't sure what to think about two. It was nice to be worried about—and it was a remarkably refreshing change to the norm that the worst that Captain Ōbi considered her curse inconvenient was that he thought she would crack her skull open on the furniture—but that seemed a teeny, tiny bit way over the top.

"Tables are hard, Hinawa. Have you ever hit your head on the corner of a table? That shit hurts."

"No, I have not, because I don't stand on things like chairs stacked on top of each other in order to change a light bulb." A soft, growling mumble. "And I'm surprised your thick, stubborn skull didn't shatter the table."

Tamaki had to swallow a giggle. How did this place function? Oh wait, terrifying lieutenant. Gotcha.

"Hey, that's dirty pool. Some of these ceilings are high!"

"Use a ladder."

"The chairs were closer!"

"See, this is what I mean." And the lieutenant sounded long-suffering. "If we end up child-proofing the station, we are doing it because of you, not because of _her_."

"You are so mean to me."

Tamaki backed away from the door as slowly and quietly as she was able. The cookies could wait until tomorrow. It had given her even more to think about, but this went down easier than everything else she'd been saddled with. It was nice to not have to fight for recognition. If the worst her curse could do to her reputation here was make them afraid she was going to break her neck, she could deal with that. That was much more palatable than the variety of things other people had called her.

It sure wasn't Company 1, and everyone here was a little kooky is some way, but they were good people.

The next night, she claimed a spot at the table for dinner.

* * *

**AN:**

***crawls out of her smokey, ashen grave in CA***

**Peeps, I am slain. Writing this was so hard. Also, the italics have escaped their kennel and run amok, and I'm sorry.**

**Believe it or not, I did get a friend to read over this for me, but considering the sheer number of words and trying to wrangle my highly errant tense changes, I'm sure a bunch of things got missed. I got the typo traps out, so I'll see what I catch in the morning.**

**I have literally been sitting on pieces of this since May. I am bad at anything remotely resembling angst and seriousness, as the four prior chapters will tell anybody, so I had to reach way down and bottom-out my skills for this. It's... ehhhhhhhhhhhh? I've done better. But Tamaki deserves nice things, so I gave her some. Namely, a pair of superiors who don't take any crap.**

**Nobody suspects the Lieutenant Inquisition!**

**Also, yes I'm aware that Karim's weapon of choice resembles a tuba somewhat more than a trombone, but I just like the word "trombone," so here we are.**

**I already know what chapter six is going to be, but I have really gotta get these Cells At Work muses to leave me alone for five damned minutes, because my brain is full of T Cells right now, so once I push out that oneshot I can get back to it. Will it be Vulcan? Will it be Hinawa? ¿Por qué no los dos?**

**...**

**Trombone.**


End file.
